Matz a.k.a Yukihiro Matsumoto a.k.a 松本行弘, creator of Ruby programming language.
Ruby is simple in appearance, but is very complex inside, just like our human body.
– Speaking on the Ruby-Talk mailing list, May 12th, 2000.
Man is driven to create; I know I really love to create things. And while I’m not good at painting, drawing, or music, I can write software.
– Foreword of Programming Ruby
No one in 1993 would have believed that an object-oriented language created by a Japanese amateur language designer would end up being used worldwide and that the language would become almost as popular as Perl. It was insane. I admit that. I didn’t believe it either…The stone has started rolling. It will became a great mountain and fill the whole earth.
– Foreword of Programming Ruby, SE
Ruby is a language designed in the following steps:
- take a simple lisp language (like one prior to CL).
- remove macros, s-expression.
- add simple object system (much simpler than CLOS).
- add blocks, inspired by higher order functions.
- add methods found in Smalltalk.
- add functionality found in Perl (in OO way).
So, Ruby was a Lisp originally, in theory.
Let’s call it MatzLisp from now on. ;-)
– Speaking on the Ruby-Talk mailing list, Feb 13th, 2006.
虽然有调侃的成分，但是这里还是基本忠实的说了Ruby的出身问题，对于理解Ruby语言特征有帮助。
No language can be perfect for everyone. I tried to make Ruby perfect for me, but maybe it’s not perfect for you. The perfect language for Guido van Rossum is probably Python.
– The Philosophy of Ruby, a conversation with Bill Venners
这个访谈很出名，里面的一些观点对很多人，尤其是西方人的常规思维习惯造成了不小的冲击。例如Matz提到Ruby更关注人而不是机器，有人开玩笑说“节约人的时间，而不是电脑的时间”，这是高级语言对比低级语言的很重要哲学，但是Matz说的含义比这个更深入，他很强调的提出，由于图灵等价理论，几乎所有语言能完成的工作都是严格等价的，Ruby的“个性”在于强调编程者的感受，Ruby给你不同于其他语言的感受，你如果喜欢你就用，它回馈给你编程的快乐。这里Matz还承认他是Larry Wall（Perl语言的发明者）的崇拜者，Ruby受到Perl哲学的影响，相信做一件事可以应该有不一样的方法，每个人都有选择的权利。里面的精华还有不少，有兴趣的自己研究。
That indicates that he trusts himself, and not me (Ruby). And I think he’s right.
– Response to the thread talking about Joel Spolsky‘s criticize to Ruby
最后这个最有趣，Joel Spolsky也是业界大牛，世界上最早开始写blog的人之一，他的blog日访问量在50万以上，可以排进全球前十（别跟我说新浪那些骗子。。。），有一次他写了一篇东西讨论“适宜的Web开发语言”（明显就是战题嘛），里面说了一些Ruby的“坏话”（其实也不算坏话），例如不成熟啦，性能不够好啦，可用资源匮乏啦，这都没啥，反正新语言的拥护者都听这些听麻木了，关键是这家伙接下去顺道吹了下他公司自己开发的一种语言Wasabi（其实本质上就是他们用来把VB Script遗留代码编译成PHP的一种技术），吹完还不过瘾，又写了一篇专门的文章介绍这个Wasabi，于是很多圈子里的大牛不爽，就出来骂他双重标准（例如Jeff Atwood），Ruby的邮件列表里自然也不会放过这个话题，发贴的人自然是义愤填膺，然后Matz出来回话，说了这么一句，真是道行深厚啊。。。估计和我一样是老庄哲学的信奉者 -_-bb