I came to perl as a refugee from Java (old-style, when Java still had no regexes and simple string processing took a zillion clunky, obnoxious lines). I liked perl and have lasted with it on-and-off for ten years now. But perl really lends itself a bit too easily to unstructuredness and reinventing the wheel. Plus I fancy something newer. Ruby seems like the ideal alternative: just as powerful, but clean and encouraging elegance. So this blog is to document my transition from perl to Ruby, and to keep a record of all the little snags you run into as a user and then forget about through habit…