The main downside to Ruby is the lack of documentation (at least in English). The only documentation I've been able to find is the online version of Programming Ruby.

I do like the instance variables though (those prefixed with a @ -- it's like %self in Perl OO). Many of the features work better than Perl OO, but that should change with Perl 6. St. Larry has dabbled in Ruby a little and found some features that he's going to incorporate into Perl.

Ruby is definitely worth a look.

- p u n k k i d
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Albert Einstein