Some time ago I started using Ruby in my projects. Before that moment I had been mostly coding in PHP. So comparison of these two languages was quite inevitable when I switched to Ruby. On initial stage I used Codeacademy resources to learn more about language potential and its distinctive features. Even now having good command of the Ruby language I still keep comparing Ruby and PHP and come to new conclusions.

In this article I would to make a quick comparative overview of Ruby and PHP based on my initial experience. 

Ruby as an object-base language

Despite the fact that both Ruby and PHP are interpreted languages Ruby is fully object-base. It means that all objects in Ruby are eventually derived from Object base class.

Therefore, data type String s = ‘Hello, world in Ruby turns into String object. We can see it by calling method .class which is derived from Object.

Object-base approach lets us make necessary changes quickly. For example, let’s unfold the lines and delete all “o” letters. The first example is in Ruby.

s.reverse.delete(‘o')

PHP

str_replace(‘o','',strrev($s));

As you can see the code does not look good at all in PHP. So it makes a point for Ruby. 

If/unless modifiers

Another feature that I noticed was the use of if/unless modifiers.

Ruby

puts ‘Hello world’ if true
puts ‘Hello world’ unless false

PHP

if (true) {
    echo ‘Hello, world’;
}

Another point for Ruby in my opinion.

Abstract classes and interfaces

Now let’s compare the implementation of abstract classes and interfaces.

In PHP it looks like this.

interface ICreature {
    public function walk($steps);
    public function  say($text);
}

PHP interpreter immediately detects Fatal Error. So we will have to run these methods.

Ruby, on the contrary, has other approach.

class ICreature 
  def walk(steps, degree)
    raise ‘Method should be implemented’
  end
  def say(text)
    raise ‘Method should be implemented’
  end
end



class Human < ICreature

end

Ruby interpreter runs the code with no exception alerts so we spot exceptions rather late when we call methods. It is a point for PHP.

Extending classes

Ruby provides an interesting option to extend classes.

For instance, we decide to extend standard Float class by adding method ‘in_miles’. This method is supposed to return distance in miles.

class Float
  def in_miles
    self / 1.6
  end
end 

As a result, we are able to do the following

1600.0.in_miles
=> 1000.0

Operator+ as an instance method

Operator+ is quite common for PHP. However, in Ruby its behaviour is different. Operator+ becomes an instance method. So we are able to define our method + in any class. By the way, method+ is unary. So it can use one parameter only.

class Complex
  attr_accessor :a, :b

  def initialize(a,b)
    self.a = a
    self.b = b
  end

  def + (complex)
    Complex.new(self.a += complex.a, self.b += complex.b)
  end

  def to_s
    "(#{a}) + i(#{b})"
  end

  end

 c1 = Complex.new(1,3)
 c2 = Complex.new(-1, -4)
(c1+c2).to_s
=> (0) + i(-1)

Ruby as a new language to master

Ruby is a comparatively new language which attracts more and more developers. They create various libraries and tools distributed as gems. It is very convenient as you can download them and add to projects easily. In addition, there are many large Ruby communities like Rubygems that help to share ideas and interact with other developers.

To sum it up, I would like to say that there is no winner here. The languages are different and they both have good sides and drawbacks. It is just a matter of personal preferences and habits. They are both cool.