From: Samantha Atkins <samantha@...>
Date: 2001-03-11T05:30:28+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:12395] Re: Java on Ruby, Ruby on Java, JRuby? where?

Kent,

> 
> 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 problem with the position that Java is evil is that Java is also,
for better or worse, ubiquitous.  For any set of tools or languages to
become mainstream they need to interface with that which is relatively
ubiquitous. Also, one of the reasons I and many are a fan of interpreted
(or semi-interprted) languages is that they make very excellent glue and
tools that we can reasonably expect to go with us into multiple
environments.  These environments are not simply machine-0S but
machine-OS-language and so on.  I want tools that allow me to
effectively use pieces of code written in whatever language together.  

I am not sure about a statement that Ruby is mostly for the 'nix
environment when I read what seems like (I haven't taken an exact count)
many hundreds of past posts about using Ruby on Windoze, with COM and so
on.  Surely windoze/COM environments are no less evil and proprietary
than Java!


 
> 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.
>

You are at least partially correct.  And I certainly will agree that
Java is a miserable language to code in. Every day I write it in I get
ticked by how difficult it is to express things elegantly, cleanly and
without a lot of donkey typing work to satisfy and extremely lazy and
moronic compiler.  But this also makes the point that we need tools that
aid in using code produced in whatever environment and weaving these
together well.  C is not a very good candidate for such a glue
language.  C is too low level and notorious machine/OS tied and
compiled.  

 
> 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*).
>

C/C++ is not fit for anything but module level components.  It is not a
good language/environment for tying components together.  C and C++ are
ancient hoary programming ancestors in many ways.  The programming
experience and environment is quite archaic.  Includes are a nightmare
that should not be inflicted on future generations. :-)  I write this as
someone who has used C/C++ for 17 years.  I am very very good at it but
it wastes a lot of brain cycles.  
 
> > 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? :-)

I am surprised if it is true that noone is working hard on this
problem.  

- samantha