From: "Furio R. Filoseta (tlf.)" <furifilo901@...>
Date: 2001-10-07T14:27:08+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:22183] Re: Let's work on Windows support

Who cares if they ditch the standard ? They will still have to be self
compatible.

I don't know if I understand this. I'll tell what I think I know. You
correct me if you so wish.

Being Ruby a modern interpreter, it "compiles" to an intermediate
language than is the executed by the runtime -the actual interpreter-.
You can write the Ruby first-pass compiler in whatever language you
fancy. Say you chosee Watcom C++, being almost free (US$9.95 sugg.). OK,
so you write this first-pass so it compiles to MSIL, to be run by the
CLR.

As far as I can see, Ruby as a language is untouched. It can still be
compiled by "free" tools and, at least under windows, you will not take
care of runtime module issues. Then again, if you didn't want .NET say,
because you want to deploy Windows 95, you could still use standard
Ruby.

I don't know Eiffel very much, but Betrand Meyer finds the .NET CLR
quite compatible with it (in terms of language semantics that may not
have proper support in the IL, as some have suggested). 

If this is so, where exactly is that we become puppets in the hands of
BG and his band of merry men ?

I don't know, guys, there IS such thing as taking a revolution so far
that it begins to resemble the overthrown regime. Starts with
revolutionaries beginning to act in exactly the same way as their
previous oppressors: This wont be done, because it is NOT OUR WAY !!!
Sheesh.

Furio