tryruby.hobix.com is an interactive, web based Ruby shell and tutorial all wrapped into one.

Python still has the advantage of greater familiarity for me, but I’ve made a point of writing recent little projects in Ruby and it’s really growing on me. It has a readable, expressive syntax with few warts; it’s been designed from the start with a nicely thought out class and object model; it has a rich standard library, and strong community support for add-on libraries.

Highest in profile among the add on libraries, Ruby on Rails is excellent.

I believe we may well be heading towards a “winner take all” scenario in dynamic language web frameworks.

There are a number of good Perl and Python frameworks, but the communities end up getting fragmented across the different competing standards, whereas Ruby on Rails is achieving a dominant position in the Ruby world. At some point the strength of the offering may grow to the point that users of other dynamic languages may jump ship.