From: James Tucker <jftucker@...>
Date: 2008-04-05T23:26:00+09:00
Subject: Re: RUBY_IMPLEMENTATION


On 3 Apr 2008, at 15:41, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I met with Wayne Kelly (of Ruby.NET) at the JAOO RubyFools
> conference.  That means I have met all primary developers of all major
> Ruby implementations.  Yay.
>
> He asked me how we can distinguish the implementation from program.
> Currently RUBY_PLATFORM gives you the platform the implementation is
> on.  RUBY_VERSION gives you the version but it is the language
> version.   Probably we need to introduce a new constant to represent
> the implementation of the running VM.
>
> What do you think the constant name should be?
> RUBY_IMPLEMENTATION?  Too long?
>
> 							matz.
>


I've been trying to stay in the background on this, as I don't really  
get involved with any of the interpreters, but all I can say is that  
I'd rather avoid this:

RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /(ms|cyg)win|mingw/

So if it's possible to make it something that is semantically stronger  
than just a string, that would be wonderful!

The reasoning is simple:

RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /cygwin/; fork(); # is legal

RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin|mingw/; fork(); # raises error

And yet cygwin is still 'Windows' in other regards. I guess all I'm  
saying is it would be useful to me as a developer, with variables of  
this nature, for there to be a well defined split between platforms  
specific features and implementation details.

Kind regards,

J.