From: "W. Kent Starr" <elderburn@...>
Date: 2001-03-11T02:39:11+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:12387] Re: Java on Ruby, Ruby on Java, JRuby? where?

On Saturday 10 March 2001 02:58, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I saw some references that looked sort of like Java on Ruby or vice
> versa in the various Ruby links but all the links to this (whatever it
> was) are broken in all pages I find them in.  

FWIW the following files are available from
ftp://ftp.netlab.co.jp/pub/lang/ruby/contrib :

java-module-0_5.README
java-module-0_5.tar.gz
java.c.gz

>What is the real story on
> Java<->Ruby interaction 

Frankly, I don't know. I DL'd these "in case I might need them", but so 
farthat "case" hasn't occurred :-)

> For another, a really good OO interpreted language
> like Ruby, accessible strongly from within Java would open up a lot more
> users to the language.  Some 100 languages either have interpreters in
> Java or compile to Java byte codes and more or less manipulate Java
> objects.  I think Ruby very much should be among them.

I think this is reasonable. It should be noted however, that Ruby is 
developed and used _primarily_ in unix environments and there is some feeling 
within the unix communities that Java is "evil". This may be more politically 
motivated than technical (Java, though freely distributed is _still_ a 
proprietary language) although I have heard (but have not confirmed) that it 
is optimized for Solaris and Windows. Personal experience is that Java 
behaves sluggishly when run on Linux relative to Windows, but that is 
_personal_ experience.

The corporate community OTOH appears to have swung to the opposite extreme 
and views Java as _the_ "magic bullet". Everything seens to be "Java this. 
Java that", which you have noted by stating that your curren't paying gigs 
are heavily Java-oriented. Personally, I feel that both extremes are wrong; 
Java definitely has its place, but that place isn't everywhere for 
everything. I also believe, especially among corporate recruiters and 
outsourcers that too much emphasis is placed upon the _how_ of a project and 
not enough upon the result. These things are MO only, though.

Pesonally,  am not overly fond of Java as, again IMO only, it is not as trim, 
mean and lean as is, say, C and it lacks the expressiveness of, say, Ruby. I 
have used, and in some cases customized (where source was available) a number 
of Java apps, and embedding apps in web pages to effect things beyond the 
scope of HTML/Javascript is very useful (although I would much prefer a 
morenon-intrusive way to effect these things.) I also have used some Java 
applications (JEdit, for example) that sport some interesting features, 
although in most cases I believe the same results could be better effected 
using C/C++ and a good, cross-platform GUI framework (which is yet another 
thread, *smile*).

> In any case, I really want a good Java <-> Ruby story bad.  Is there any
> such thing out there?  Is someone working on such?  If not, why not?

Hopefully the above files will get your going in the right direction. Maybe 
_you_ will become _the_ Ruby <=> Java spark of inspiration. Who knows? :-)

Regards,

Kent Starr  

> thanks.
>
> - samantha