Ruby on Rails

Abbreviated as RoR, Ruby on Rails (also referred to as just Rails) is an open source Web application framework, written in Ruby (object-oriented programming language), for developing database-backed Web applications. RoR closely follows the Model-View-Control (MVC) pattern, where models, views and controllers are fully integrated in a seamless fashion. Rails is a pure Ruby development environment that allows for real-world applications to be developed in less code and with a minimum of configuration.

Ruby

Ruby is a fully object-oriented language, much like the classic object-oriented language, Smalltalk. Like Smalltalk, it is dynamically typed (as opposed to Java or C++), but unlike Smalltalk, Ruby features the same conveniences found in modern scripting languages such as Perl and Python.
The combination of the power of a pure object-oriented language with the convenience of a scripting language makes Ruby a preferred tool of intelligent, forward-thinking programmers.

Ruby Facets

Ruby Facets is the single largest collection of core extension methods and standard library additions available for the Ruby programming language.

Benefits

• Use Ruby because it is Lightweight. A Ruby download is under 10 MB. Ruby Gems allows easy package management for downloading libraries and documentation.
• Portable - runs on PDAs and Mainframes.
• Use Ruby is Transparent. It's nice and easy to read - and it only takes a couple of hours to learn its syntax.
• Easy to Learn - uses the Principle of Least Surprise. Things seem to work as you'd expect. Dave knows people they’ve downloaded Ruby and put web applications on line in the same morning - w/o any prior knowledge of Ruby.
• Open Source - MIT/Artistic style license. 1.8.3's regular expression engine is LGPL, 1.9's engine will be BSD-style license.
• Fun! It's enjoyable to program in.