For everything we can.
Lately, I managed to use it to typeset the survey results
from the Edward Tufte's Presenting Data and Information class
NASA Langley hosted last January.
The gory details are at
http://www.engin.umich.edu/~kleb/TufteSurvey/
Please critique the code if you're up to it. It wasn't built
test-first, so it is quite sloppy. It was also my first foray
into writing LaTeX with Ruby and hooking into XML.
Regardless, it was a joy: Thanks Matz!
Other uses we've found for Ruby that I can immediately recall:
test/unit for C-code test-first development
rolled our own xUnit testing framework for Fortran 9X
documenting Fortran 9X source via a plugin to Rdoc (thanks Dave!)
automating one of our computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes
so that we can analyze shuttle tile damage quickly and reliably
Fortran Code runners
Fortran makefile dependency generation
automatically convert our http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov/ CFD Fortran
code to complex variables for design optimization
Beowulf cluster monitoring scripts
CVS helper scripts, e.g., coding standard commit sentinel, code
clean-up, log summaries, plot usage generation, rewind files, and
dependency graph generation via Graphviz.
Refactoring Fortran code
Continuous integration and build scripts
CFD for simple model equations (code available upon request)
Regards,
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Bil Kleb, Hampton, Virginia