Re: how to build ruby on vms

> If the ruby-core community doesn't consider it off-topic, I'd like 
> to keep those discussions here on this list so we have a public 
> record of it.  Otherwise, there is the open-discussion forum for the 
> vmsruby project that we have not yet taken advantage of.

You will let me know if I break any rule !?

> http://rubyforge.org/projects/vmsruby/

OK, this looks much better.

BTW: the http:// url seem to be wrong (missing  /VMSruby/)

> Although the project has not been very active recently, it is still 
> alive and the port, such as it is, is functional.  The main problem 
> is that we only have as much of it working as our company needs so 
> far.  To turn it into something usable by the broader community will 
> take more work than we have been able to put into it alone.

Ha! Experienced exactly that.
So I don't want to raise expectations. I can work on it after work.
If I can present some benefit (say Rake on VMS) they will let me do a
little more "officially".

> One impediment to finishing is that the port started from the work 
> of Masamichi Akiyoshi on a fork from Ruby 1.8.2, who, unfortunately, 
> no longer works on the port.  So now we have all of this old code 
> not written by us that has not been merged back into the latest 
> upstream Ruby release.  To ensure the long term viability of this 
> project, this will have to happen.

So this: http://www.geocities.jp/vmsruby/en/ is from him?
I use it on AXP.

> ... knowledge, I imagine the project would be in much better hands if 
> someone who already had these skills came on board.

I'm not the VMS guru here. But we surely have at least two of them.
I will try to get them 'on board' as you say, but that's another thing ...

> I hope my honesty about the state of the project has not put you 
> off.

No, I'm fine ... but busy, so don't expect fast progress.

Regards,
Toni Schilling,
EQUIcon Software Jena GmbH