Crystal vs Ruby

Ruby is a dynamic, interpreted, reflective, high-level, open-source programming language that focuses on simplicity and productivity. Crystal, on the other hand, is a statically typed, compiled, and object-oriented programming language with a syntax similar to Ruby. But how do they compare?

Syntax

Ruby's syntax is often praised for its simplicity and readability, making it easy to learn for beginners. Its syntax is very forgiving and allows for a lot of flexibility. For instance, Ruby allows you to avoid parentheses and semicolons, using only indentation to delimit blocks of code.

Crystal's syntax, on the other hand, is also influenced by Ruby; however, it is more strict and has stricter rules. It requires semicolons to end statements and must use parentheses for method calls with arguments.

Performance

In terms of performance, Crystal outshines Ruby. Since it is statically typed and compiled, Crystal's code executes faster than Ruby's interpreted code. According to the benchmarks on The Computer Language Benchmarks Game, Crystal is generally faster than Ruby, but the difference in performance varies by the problem being solved.

Here are some numbers to back this up. In a benchmark comparison between Crystal and Ruby [1], where they both solve the same problem, Crystal was 5 times faster than Ruby. Another benchmark [2] showed that on average, Crystal was 70% faster than Ruby.

Community Support

Ruby boasts a large and supportive community that can guide and help programmers starting with the language. Ruby has many active open-source projects available, including popular web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Sinatra.

Crystal, while newer and still growing, has a dedicated and fast-growing community. The language is maturing quickly, and the community is actively working on its development. However, since Crystal is still a smaller language, it has fewer open-source libraries and a smaller community than Ruby.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Crystal and Ruby have their strengths and weaknesses. Ruby has a forgiving syntax and a large community and range of open-source projects. Crystal, on the other hand, is faster and less prone to runtime errors. In the end, it all depends on what the programmer values more: speed or ease of use.

References:

[1] https://github.com/kostya/benchmarks/tree/master/crystal_vs_ruby [2] https://www.sitepoint.com/crystal-vs-ruby/