Ruby is a dynamic , reflective , general purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk -like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto . It was influenced primarily by Perl , Smalltalk , Eiffel , and Lisp . Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms , including functional , object oriented , imperative and reflective . It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management ; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Python , Perl , Lisp , Dylan , Pike , and CLU .^[1]