Do we usually use Iconv to do translate to various encodings

I wonder if we usually use Iconv to translate to various encoding?

For example:

Iconv.conv(“UTF-8”, “BIG-5”, content)

or

Iconv.conv(“UTF-8”, “CP950”, content)

or do we usually use other packages? One reason is that BIG-5 can
cause an exception while CP950 won’t on some content, and both of them
are supposed to be Tradtional Chinese encoding.

by the way, iconv -l on the shell will give names of all encodings.
Are they supposed to be usable by the ruby Iconv library?