Ruby – the heart of Metasploit
Ruby is indeed the heart of the Metasploit Framework. However, what exactly is Ruby? According to the official website, Ruby is a simple and powerful programming language and was designed by Yokihiru Matsumoto in 1995. It is further defined as a dynamic, reflective, and general-purpose, object-oriented programming language with functions similar to Perl.
Important note
You can download Ruby for Windows/Linux from https://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/.
You can refer to an excellent resource for learning Ruby practically at http://tryruby.org/levels/1/challenges/0.
Creating your first Ruby program
Ruby is an easy-to-learn programming language. Now, let's start with the basics of Ruby. Remember that Ruby is a broad programming language, and covering all of the capabilities of Ruby would push us beyond the scope of this book. Therefore, we will only stick to the essentials that are required in designing Metasploit modules.