Part I: The King of Gemstones
Long before it became a name in computer science, “ruby” was synonymous with passion, power, and protection. The word itself derives from the Latin “rubeus,” meaning red. For over two thousand years, the crimson corundum gem has been treasured across civilizations. In ancient India, it was hailed as the “ratnaraj,” or “king of precious stones,” believed to offer invincibility in battle. Burmese warriors embedded rubies into their flesh, convinced the stones would make them impervious to wounds. In medieval Europe, rubies adorned the armor and regalia of kings and clergy, symbolizing divine right, courage, and unwavering love.
The allure lay in its stunning properties. Ruby is a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminum oxide), whose iconic red color comes from trace amounts of chromium. It is exceptionally hard, ranking 9 on the Mohs scale, second only to diamond. For centuries, the most legendary sources were in Myanmar’s (Burma’s) Mogok Valley, often described as the “Valley of Rubies.” These Burmese stones, with their deep, pigeon-blood red hue and fluorescent glow, set the standard for quality. Later, significant deposits were found in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Afghanistan, and, more recently, in Mozambique and Greenland.
The history of the ruby is etched with famous stones. The Black Prince’s Ruby, a large, irregular red spinel (long mistaken for a ruby) adorns the Imperial State Crown of England. The Liberty Bell Ruby, a stunning 8,500-carat stone sculpted into a miniature of the iconic bell, was famously stolen in a heist. Each major discovery and trade route—from the Silk Road to European colonialism—woven the ruby deeper into the fabric of human history, economics, and myth.
Part II: The Birth of a Language: “A Language of Care and Balance”
In a remarkable parallel millennia later, another Ruby was conceived, not in the bowels of the earth, but in the mind of a Japanese computer scientist. In the mid-1990s, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto was dissatisfied with the existing programming languages. He found Perl chaotic and Python too restrictive. He dreamed of a language that was powerful yet joyful to use, one that followed the Principle of Least Astonishment—where the language behaves in a way that minimizes confusion for the user.
“I wanted a scripting language that was more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python,” Matz later explained. He blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) but imbued the mix with a uniquely human-centric philosophy. On February 24, 1995, he released Ruby 0.95 to a Japanese mailing list. The name was chosen as a tribute to the gemstone, following a conversation with a colleague who likened the new creation to the birth of a precious jewel.
