From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2004-10-11T04:54:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby VM Projects

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David Ross (dross@code-exec.net) wrote:

> Eric Hodel wrote:
>=20
> >>its not even being recreated in C.
> >
> >There are few compelling reasons to use C.  There are few non-Japanese
> >speaking Ruby interpreter hackers (I mean eval.c) because it is very
> >difficult to get over the language barrier.  I believe matz has said
> >that eval.c contains "black magic".
>
> Use C for speed.

There is no need to use C to be fast.  Read the Squeak paper.

In a matter of months (18?) the Squeak team had an implementation of
Smalltalk written in Smalltalk that was reasonably comparable in speed
to commercial Smaltalk implementations *before JIT*.  This included
things like a multimedia library that was capable of synthesizing
multiple channels in real-time and a full GUI layer.

The Squeakers used two key components to get this advantage.  They used
a Smalltalk subset that could be compiled to C, and they inlined
everything they could.

(The Squeakers had several advantages over Ruby, I'll have to write
about them sometime.)

I must note the story of a JIT on the HPPA architecture that was
faster than the compiled version because the JIT was good enough to
optimize for actual usage.

A combination of these approaches allows you to be fast and easy to
hack.

I prefer writing Ruby over writing C, and if I have to use C at all, I'd
rather have it generated for me so I don't have to think about it.

> Yes, eval.c is not so great, and a syntax error which isnt very
> specific as what is wrong is bad.

Syntax errors are found during parsing, not interpreting.

--=20
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://segment7.net
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