From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2007-11-12T08:21:20+09:00
Subject: Re: enterprise ruby

On Nov 11, 2007 3:11 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@sun.com> wrote:
> Rick DeNatale wrote:
> > In this implementation, Java primitives were written in Smalltalk.
> > IIRC this was either before the JNI existed, or the JNI evolved to
> > make this impractical, and IBM moved to a Java only VM.
> >
> > I know that it's difficult, and probably premature to define a
> > standard extension interface which would work across the various
> > emerging ruby implementations.  But without that I'm afraid that the
> > promise of having multiple implementations is somewhat muted.
>
> This implies that it's only valid to call something an "extension" if
> it's written in C. That's a bit narrow. JRuby has far better support
> than MRI for writing extensions in Java, for example. Does it mean that
> JRuby is somehow less-capable than MRI if it can't use C extensions? Of
> course it doesn't.
>
> The only thing it means is that existing extensions written in C for MRI
> won't work in JRuby.

JRuby specific extension example omitted.

> So I'd say it's a matter of perspective.
>
> Can you write extensions for JRuby? Yes. Can you write them in C? Not
> easily.
>
> Can you write extensions for MRI? Yes. Can you write them in Java? Not
> easily.

All of which misses my point.

Unless and until extensions can be written which are portable against
Ruby, JRuby, IronRuby, Rubinius ... the Ruby 'market' will be
fragmented.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/