From: Phil Jackson <phil@...>
Date: 2006-06-03T10:35:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Speed of Ruby program != Speed of Ruby language (was Re: Zed and Luis drop the bomb on Ruby's poor performance)

On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 07:56:10 +0900, Dave Howell wrote:

>>>That might make my *program* run faster, but it didn't do 
>>>diddly-squat for making *Ruby* faster.
>>
>>Do you use the YAML parser in Ruby?
> 
> No.
> 
>>Or the String class?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> They're C.
> 
> I find that assertion to be quite ludicrous. A C string is a 
> null-terminated byte sequence. 

..snip..

> The String class is not only nothing like a C string, it's not a string at
> all, in the sense that any/all other languages I've met use the term.

This is the point you should just let this one go I think. Ruby is written
in C and the String object wraps one of these (as defined in ruby.h):

    struct RString {
        struct RBasic basic;
        long len;
        char *ptr;
        union {
            long capa;
            VALUE shared;
        } aux;
    };

What this boils down to is that a Ruby String *is* a C string with fancy
clothes on.

Cheers,
Phil