Report: Ruby Scripting Language Use Growing

In a recent survey of 400 software developers in North America, Evans Data Corp also found that 20 percent plan to use Ruby in the coming year. Ruby has been around since the mid-1990s, but the growing prevalence of Web applications is attracting more fans to an already fervent community of Ruby adherents.

Ruby is a solid language with some similarities to Javascript, and as more programming logic goes to the browser and Javascript, its growth is likely to continue, says John Locke, principal consultant at Freelock Computing, a Seattle-based open-source consultancy. "I could see Ruby being easier to switch gears when you need to go look at the server side," he said.

Another factor in the rise of Ruby is the maturity of Rails, an open source framework for creating database-backed Web applications, says Bernard Golden, CEO of Hyperstratus, a San Carlos, Calif.-based solution provider.

"Generalized scripting languages are becoming more prevalent and widely used because of the high level of productivity that's associated with them," Golden said. "You can get in and build stuff very quickly."