[shakow]

Are those standards really useful though? I'm under the impression that Perl/Ruby/Python/etc. have done well enough without.

[steveklabnik]

Hilariously, Ruby actually has an ISO standard, and it is absolutely useless.

[lifthrasiir]

It has been fast-tracked from the Japanese standard JIS X 3017, and I think there was a strong incentive to standardize due to Ruby being the only current mainstream language originated from Japan. (I recall even the Ruby Association [1] is supported by Matsue, where Matz was born.)

[1] https://www.ruby.or.jp/en/