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Jim Weirich derives the Y combinator in pure Ruby here:

EDIT: Correct video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs

It is some of the ugliest ruby code I have ever seen, but it was something amazing to watch happen live.

Nice, I enjoyed Jim's talk where he derived the combinator using clojure[1]. In it he referenced another talk that he cites as an influence, "Programming With Nothing"[2] by Tom Stuart where he writes fizzbuzz in ruby using only lambda application.

Finding the SKI calculus was a similar revelation to me, that such simple combinators could represent any lambda term is such a huge idea!

1: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Y-Combinator

2: http://rubymanor.org/3/videos/programming_with_nothing/

Is the Ruby hiding in that video? I briefly skimmed it and all I saw was JavaScript.

You are correct, I edited the comment with the right video.

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