From: Timothy Hunter <TimHunter@...>
Date: 2007-01-22T10:13:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby extension tutorial

Wim Vander Schelden wrote:
> Wim Vander Schelden schreef:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just finished a tutorial about writing simple ruby extensions.
>> I was hoping you guys could give me some feedback on what you think 
>> about it.
>>
>> If you find any mistakes (code, spelling, grammar and explanation), I 
>> would also appreciate it if you told me about them?
>>
>> I'm looking for critisism - I hope to improve the article.
Nice work! Here's a couple of nitpicks...

You recommend using the "rb_" prefix on classes, modules, etc., but I'd 
argue that rb_-prefixed names should be reserved for things defined by 
Ruby itself, and your extension should use some other naming convention.

You use names_array->ptr[i] to access elements in an array. My choice 
would be to use rb_ary_index instead, to put a little logical distance 
between my code and the RArray structure definition. You could use 
rb_ary_length to get the array size as well.

Regarding "Where to go from here," another good learning resource is the 
C sources for the builtin classes. I frequently refer to string.c, 
array.c, io.c, etc. to see how things should be done.