From: Cameron McBride <cameron.mcbride@...>
Date: 2007-11-14T16:45:32+09:00
Subject: Re: enterprise ruby

On 11/13/07, Sean Surname <x3qh85202@sneakemail.com> wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> > As far as sharing data is concerned, to keep everybody's garbage
> > collectors and memory allocators happy and segfault-free, you probably
> > need to do explicit transfers of data between the various packages,
>
> This is a significant barrier.  Having to marshal and unmarshal your
> data whenever you go from one domain to another is annoying.  It's a
> large part of what we're trying to avoid in moving away from a
> multi-language solution.  I think Ruby's got the right ingredients to
> pull this stuff together: dynamism, easy C interaction, and flexible and
> unobtrusive syntax.  But someone needs to sit down and do some Serious
> Work before it's a viable Matlab replacement.  I've made a couple of
> half-hearted tries, but it's hard to make progress piece-by-piece when
> you're trying to generate results right-this-minute.

so, so, so true.  I, also, have had some half-hearted attempts to make
some things work - but it's difficult.  While I still don't use
matlab, I'm not exceptionally happy with the current state of my
workflow.  I also believe that Ruby has a lot of the right things to
make a fantastic solution.  Unfortunately, years later, I have to
agree - it requires some Serious Work and I'm not sure how/if/when I
can make it happen.  Also, besides a select few - it doesn't appear
that many care to make ruby stretch far in that realm.  The select few
seem to be rather satisfied with current solutions (say, a certain
advocate of RSRuby ;) While unfortunate, it makes sense - it's not a
very large user base.

I have a lot of numerical processing scripts in ruby.  Mostly they are
hybrids of NArray and GSL, with a few of Ara's tricks and C extensions
thrown in.   Since my focus has also been results ASAP, I've had
little time to generalize / sync these efforts.  In addition, I sorely
miss direct graphics (note: I'm not a fan of how GSL shellsout to
graph, or many of the other solutions.  The closest to what I like is
the NArray/PGPLOT extension, but PGPLOT itself is better when not used
directly).

It'd be great to find a few like minded people and work together to
garner and keep momentum for such a project.  Given the small number
of interested people, and the fact that "like-minded solutions" don't
seem to overlap between them - I'm skeptical of it happening.  However
unlikely, I still cling to hope...  ;)

Cameron