Ruby is a highly dynamic language with impressive capabilities for runtime redefinition of classes, objects, methods, and variables. Haskell, on the other hand, is a purely functional language that confines mutation within a sophisticated static type system. Given their many differences one or the other may be more suited for whatever problem you might be working on (see polyglot programming), but sometimes, a mix of both would be even better.

This is the third article in a series titled “There is no magic, there is only awesome.” The first article introduced the “four cardinal rules of awesomeness”. The second article discussed knowing your tools.

Welcome back to Rebase! Want your project featured? Check out the guidelines and remember: the more information on your README/project page the better!

What follows is an interview with Nicholas Wieland, CTO of Italy-based Zooppa, a fast growing social network for creative types. This is the second in a series of interviews I will carry out with interesting figures from the micro-ISV and startup scene. If you have a compelling story to tell, own or run a tech startup, and would like to be featured, please drop me a line via email.

Functional programming languages such as Erlang, Haskell, and Clojure have been gaining momentum over the last year and a half, promising us support for easy distributed, fault-tolerant, non-stop applications.