From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2005-08-31T22:47:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby on Linux & Windows

On 8/30/05, Tim Ferrell <Tim.Ferrell@s0nspark.com> wrote:
[...]
> I am comfortable enough on either platform, but being somewhat new to
> Ruby I do have a couple of nagging questions...
> 
> 1. Are there any major hurdles to writing portable code across
>    platforms with Ruby? If I stick with Windows on my dev boxes will I
>    have to do a lot of platform checks to make sure things work
>    properly on both Windows and Linux?

In general, no. I do all of my Ruby development work on Windows and
aside from a couple of issues with capitalization several years ago, I
have been told of nothing that I've released having cross-platform
problems.

> 2. Is one platform notably better supported by Ruby at the system
>    level? Are there features I won't be able to use on Windows that
>    are available on Linux? (syscall comes to mind... anything else?)

Mostly fork. There are some issues, IMO, with the lack of support for
the Windows filesystem specifics (alternate data streams, very long
filenames, Unicode filenames). When Matz checks in the new M17N strings
into 1.9, though, I will look at implementing the Windows filesystem
stuff in a way that fully supports Windows.

If you are doing web development, be aware that some TCP/IP stack shims
(Zone Alarm, possibly Norton Antivirus) are very badly behaved and do
not work at all with Ruby if they are installed.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca