From: Alexander Kellett <ruby-lists@...>
Date: 2005-02-04T18:54:09+09:00
Subject: Re: lack of reaction to latest ruby implementations


On Feb 4, 2005, at 12:10 AM, Daniel Berger wrote:
> Well, Alex, I kinda feel like a caveman who's just been given a wrench.
> You're screaming "Look! Look! Look at this awesome tool we've
> invented!  And it's all yours!".  I'm staring at the shiny new metal
> thing, and deep down I get the feeling it's pretty important, but I
> just don't know what to do with it.
>
> Know what I mean?

hehe. oh. ah!. funny comparison :)

well usage wise, i agree its not like you
can jump on board and replace your ruby
interpreter with either yarv or ruby2c/metaruby.
however, i would have expected that more people
were interested in a) helping out, b) giving
feedback, c) at least cheering the guys on :)

as far as i understand, with ruby2c it would
be possible to write ruby extensions in a subset
so rather than having to write extensions in c
in order to fix a specific speed problem that
a better algorithm just doesn't exist for,
ruby2c could be used, no static typing, just
easy to write ruby! okay sure, there are many
limitations but i'd rather use a limited ruby
than have to worry about static typing
definitions in c!

and then on to metaruby, which is just plain
cool :) imagine a ruby implementation written
in the language itself! rather than needing to
understand *yet another language* just to make
a minor change (for example to see how an rcr
would look in real life) wouldn't you love to be
able to extend and toy around with the interpreter
you're oh so fond of?

and YARV, well, just look at the benchmarks!
sure there are a few minor missing features, but
on the whole, other than bugs (which ko1 would
more than glad to know about i guess ;) its
certainly not something to ignore :)

anyways. at least i know now that its not because
of lack of interest. seems like a set of
misunderstandings :)

so just to check, people are actually interested
in a faster ruby right? interested in a ruby 2.0
which would not only be faster in the general case!,
but due to the those speed improvements, would also
have some of the features that in the past were
cast off due to possible speed problems?. a ruby
implementation in which RCR's can be implemented
at a whim and extra extensions added in an easy
to use ruby subset?

thanks for the replies everyone :)
Alex