If you check (historically) the benchmarks on http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ then: * perl5 was always a 2-4 times faster

If you check (historically) the benchmarks on http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ then: * perl5 was always a 2-4 times faster than than ruby 1.8 * perl5 & ruby 1.9 are comparable usually swapping places on different "Which programming languages are fastest?" benchmarks * When taking in above speed benchmarks, memory used & code-used then perl5 just nudges in front of ruby 1.9. See "Which programming language is best?"