From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2005-07-18T08:49:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Helix player bindings for ruby

ziyan wrote:
> Hello all,

Hi Ziyan -- see below.

> Does anyone know if it's possible to script the Helix DNA client engine
> (https://client.helixcommunity.org/) using Ruby?

Never heard of it, but it sounds cool so far.

> Apparently the engine exposes it's fucntionality via COM interfaces
> (based on a cross platform subset of MS-COM). Could ruby's COM support
> be used, and if so would this work on *nix?

Yes and no. Here is my understanding:

1. Win32OLE will let you talk to an object's COM interface.
2. However, it only runs on win32.
3. There is a RubyCOM which may be different, though I don't
    think it would help; and anyhow I think it may be abandoned.

However, I have had a sub-project in mind for awhile that would
'wrap' win32ole with druby (distributed ruby). That would enable
two things:

1. Easy control of a win32 app via a Ruby script *on* win32 (with
    a nice rubyish API)
2. Control of a win32 app via a Ruby script *on Linux* (or elsewhere)
    via the same Ruby-like API.

I think this is an important enough idea that it could be a project
or lib in itself.

Obviously it should be automated to whatever extent possible. But
it might be good to do one or two "one-offs" so as to get a feel
for how it should be abstracted. (On the other hand, I don't really
know COM, so someone else might not need those dry runs.)

Is that something you'd be interested in collaborating on?


Hal