Java SE includes a lot, but it does emphatically not include a reasonable amount of useful string methods. These are the javadocs for string: https://docs.oracl

Java SE includes a lot, but it does emphatically not include a reasonable amount of useful string methods. These are the javadocs for string: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/String.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/String.h... and these are the rubydocs: http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.3.0/String.html http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.3.0/String.html The difference is absolutely massive. When working on Java projects, I've always included commons/StringUtils reflexively, and even then Ruby is quite a bit ahead. The same applies to collections / enumerables. There's a lot in Ruby that I don't like, but powerful "batteries included" standard libraries for the basics like strings and collections are the bedrock of any programming language. It only takes hard work to write them and test them, not any specific skill, so there is no excuse for all the language out there that are skill lacking, in 2016, a sensible collection of utility methods.