From: MenTaLguY <mental@...>
Date: 2007-06-22T05:32:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby extensions question..

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 05:28:17 +0900, Aaron Smith <beingthexemplary@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, helps more. I think where I'm going with this is that its best
> to write a C program that does everything needed. Then come back and
> extend Ruby with those pieces. Instead of worrying about Ruby
> integration now, wait till the straight C functionality is there.. Then
> there should only be slight overhead of a few rb_* calls.

I'd actually say it's the other way around -- write the program in Ruby, then
profile it to see where the slow spots are.  Optimize those, and when
you've run out of things to optimize in Ruby, _then_ see if you can cut down
on method calls in critical places by pushing things into C.  _if you need
to_ (you may not)

Trying to optimize too early just makes life harder for you, and there are a
surprising number of gotchas when embedding Ruby in a C program (rather than
vice-versa); the Ruby interpreter is not the most embedding-friendly.

-mental