Yukihiro Matsumoto, often known as Matz, is a prominent Japanese computer scientist best known for creating the Ruby programming language. He designed Ruby with an emphasis on simplicity and productivity, making it a favorite among developers for its elegant syntax and powerful features. Matsumoto's vision for Ruby was to make programming more enjoyable and accessible. His work has significantly influenced the software development community, and Ruby has become a cornerstone for web development, particularly with the Ruby on Rails framework, which has transformed how developers build applications.