Yukihiro Matsumoto
Japanese computer scientist who designed the Ruby programming language.
Yukihiro Matsumoto (born 14 April 1965), often called Matz, is a Japanese programmer and computer scientist. He is most famous for creating the Ruby programming language and its first reference implementation, known as Matz's Ruby Interpreter (MRI). Since 2011, he has served as the Chief Architect of Ruby at Heroku, a cloud platform company based in San Francisco. He is also a fellow at the Rakuten Institute of Technology, the research arm of the Rakuten Group, and became a technical advisor for VASILY, Inc. in June 2014.
Matsumoto was born in Osaka Prefecture and moved to Tottori at age four. He taught himself programming before finishing high school, according to an interview with Japan Inc. He earned a degree in information science from the University of Tsukuba, where he worked in Ikuo Nakata's research lab on programming languages and compilers.
He works for the Japanese open-source company Netlab.jp and is known as an open-source evangelist in Japan. He has released several open-source projects, including cmail, an email client for Emacs written entirely in Emacs Lisp. Ruby was his first piece of software to gain recognition outside Japan.
The first version of Ruby was released on 21 December 1995, and Matsumoto continues to lead development of its reference implementation, MRI.
In April 2012, Matsumoto open-sourced a new Ruby implementation called mruby. This minimal version runs on a virtual machine called ritevm and is designed to let developers embed Ruby in other programs while keeping memory usage low and performance high.
In December 2014, he open-sourced a new scripting language called streem. It is a concurrent language modeled after shell programming, drawing influences from Ruby, Erlang, and other functional languages.
Matsumoto is listed as an investor in Treasure Data, a company whose tools, such as Fluentd, rely heavily on Ruby.
In 2012, he received the 2011 Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation at the LibrePlanet conference in Boston.
Matsumoto is married with four children. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has served a standard mission, and currently works as a counselor in the bishopric of his local ward.
His written works include *オブジェクト指向スクリプト言語 Ruby*, *Ruby in a Nutshell*, and *The Ruby Programming Language*.
- born
- 14 April 1965
- field
- Computer science, software programming
- nationality
- Japanese
- known_for
- Chief designer of the Ruby programming language and its original reference implementation, Matz's Ruby Interpreter (MRI)
Lore & Background
Born in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, Matsumoto was raised in Tottori from the age of four. According to an interview conducted by Japan Inc., he was a self-taught programmer until the end of high school. He graduated with an information science degree from University of Tsukuba, where he was a member of Ikuo Nakata's research lab on programming languages and compilers.
He works for the Japanese open source company Netlab.jp. Matsumoto is known as one of the open-source evangelists in Japan. He has released several open source products, including cmail, the Emacs-based mail user agent, written entirely in Emacs Lisp. Ruby is his first piece of software that became known outside Japan. He released the first version of the Ruby programming language on 21 December 1995 and still leads the development of its reference implementation, MRI.
In April 2012, Matsumoto open sourced his work on a new implementation of Ruby called mruby, a minimal implementation based on his virtual machine, ritevm, designed to allow embedding Ruby in other programs while keeping memory footprint small and performance optimized. In December 2014, he open sourced his work on a new scripting language called streem, a concurrent language based on a programming model similar to shell, with influences from Ruby, Erlang, and other functional programming languages.
Reader's Guide
Yukihiro Matsumoto's significance lies primarily in his creation and ongoing stewardship of the Ruby programming language, which has had a profound impact on software development, particularly in web application frameworks like Ruby on Rails. By releasing the first version of Ruby on 21 December 1995 and continuing to lead its reference implementation, MRI, he established a language known for its readability and flexibility. His later work on mruby, a minimal implementation for embedding, and streem, a concurrent scripting language, demonstrates his continued influence in language design. Matsumoto's role as Chief Architect of Ruby at Heroku and fellow of the Rakuten Institute of Technology underscores his leadership in both open-source and industry contexts. His recognition with the 2011 Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation highlights his contributions to free software. His legacy is that of a designer who shaped modern programming through a language that prioritizes programmer happiness and productivity, while his open-source evangelism and investments in companies like Treasure Data further cement his impact on the technology ecosystem.
Did You Know?
- Matsumoto released the first version of the Ruby programming language on 21 December 1995.
- He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and serves as a counselor in the bishopric of his church's ward.
- He received the 2011 Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation at the 2012 LibrePlanet conference.
- In April 2012, he open sourced mruby, a minimal implementation of Ruby designed for embedding in other programs.
More in Inventors And Engineers 1-17
Spotted an error? Know more?
This is a living reference — every entry is fact-audited, and reader corrections feed straight into our audit queue. Suggest an edit · See this site's audit record