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New here? This is the guided walk through Ruby Lore, in a sensible order, start to finish.

1. Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto

   The creator who decided a programming language should make you happy.

2. Ruby was named before it existed

   The name came first, in a chat, before a single line of code.

3. "Optimize for programmer happiness"

   Ruby's founding value: bend the language toward joy, not the machine.

4. MINASWAN

   "Matz is nice and so we are nice." The community's core social rule.

5. _why the lucky stiff

   The artist who made Ruby feel like play, then vanished.

6. Chunky bacon

   A nonsense catchphrase from _why's Poignant Guide, and a pure inside joke.

7. David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

   Created Rails, which is how most people meet Ruby, and a lightning rod for strong opinions.

8. Rails was pulled out of Basecamp

   Rails was never built as a product. It was extracted from a real app, then a screencast made it explode.

9. The Christmas-release tradition

   Ruby gives itself to the community as a present, almost every December 25.

10. Ruby 3.0

    The "Ruby 3x3" promise, delivered on Christmas Day 2020.

11. Ruby 4.0

    Ruby 4.0, delivered on Christmas Day 2025, introducing ZJIT and the experimental Ruby Box.