From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson) Date: 2001-11-28T03:29:40+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:26685] Re: Vote in the current poll! In article , Robert Feldt wrote: >Hi, > >Maybe Dave have already promoted the latest RubyGarden poll; I've missed >it so here goes: > >Please vote in the RubyGarden poll on the max length of your Ruby >programs. I find it very interesting. > >I'd like to know if people, like me, would like to push Ruby as not >only a script language but as a general programming language (sure we should >have both but IMHO the latter use is currently more in focus). If people >are interested in this there would be, *hint*, more incentives to >investigate speeding up Ruby and producing binaries. I find it hard to >get a feel for how people use Ruby and how they would use it if it could >be compiled to reasonably fast binaries. > >Basically do you think there is a market for a Ruby compiler and binary >tools? (sure it would be great if its free but if one wants >commercial-grade stuff I think someone needs to pay a little; maybe >only companies?) Or would you be content with a faster interpreter? Personally, I'd be content with a faster interpreter (VM?). Compilers for a language like Ruby seem to be somewhat problematic because of the dynamic nature of the language - I'm not sure you would get as much of a speedup as is implied. If your premise is that if we can show that people are building large programs with Ruby we can prove the need for [compilers|faster interpreters] then I'm not sure that's the right way to go about it. The people who need fast(or at least faster than the current Ruby implementation can provide) performance probably are not using Ruby currently. I think it's more of a "if you build it, they will come" situation. I must say that I am a bit worried about the performance issue. The Perl6 folks are working on a new VM that should improve Perl's performance, the Python folks are trying out things like Psyco ( http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~arigo/psyco/ - Can Ruby benefit from this approach? ) to improve their VM's performance. I don't see what we're doing in Ruby-land (not that nothing's going on, it's just that I'm not hearing much about it if it is). We could perhaps get involved in Parrot, but it isn't clear at this point that that would give us the maximum possible performance. There's been a little bit of talk about making a Ruby frontend to SmallScript's VM, but that isn't an open source option. You mention that people should pay for faster performance, but I would prefer an open source solution. > >Can someone comment on how ActiveState entry to the Perl and Python >communities have affected them? Were they frowned upon? And do they >"work" commercially? Whats their model and is it good? > Well, ActiveState really improved the state of Perl's Win32 platform support. Prior to ActiveState's entry into Perl, I think Perl's Win32 platform support was similar to the level that Ruby's is now. They also offer Linux versions, but to be honest, while it certainly makes sense to use ActiveState Perl on Windows platforms I'm not sure why I'd use it on Linux - maybe someone else can comment on this. >Sorry for the wealth of questions but its very interesting. Looking >forward to any of your thoughts... Good questions. I hope they will spark a discussion on improving Ruby's performance (I'm primarily worried about falling behind Perl and Python in this area) that will lead to some solid action. Phil