From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" Date: 2008-01-02T13:30:02+09:00 Subject: Windows Ruby (was Re: Zed Shaw - Ruby has dodged a bullet) Sam Smoot wrote: > On Jan 1, 7:46 pm, Luis Lavena wrote: >> In my case I don't hate but really piss me off that every time I try >> to get feedback on proper support for Windows (which I professionally >> use), get silly answers like "hey, move to a real OS". > > Off Topic: I really do think OCI's use of VC6 is a big factor in this. > Not only do I have to buy VMWare, a copy of Windows, and go through > *hours* of inconvenience, but I have to dig up some compiler that's no > longer offered or supported when MS offers free alternatives for > download (VCExpress)... It's really frustrating. Not directed at you > of course Luis. Appreciate your hard work at bridging the gap. :-) Well ... let's open this for discussion. Austin, John, Charlie, please feel free to jump in. :) 1. Microsoft has a Ruby product in the works, which is called IronRuby. It is as I understand it an open source project, under development by a small team including John Lam. I haven't heard the latest status, but as of RubyConf 2007 it was still "under construction". 2. jRuby will run anywhere the Java Virtual Machine runs, which means Windows is included. 3. You do *not* have to buy VMware to run Windows on a Linux box provided your hardware has the recent enhancements that allow Xen to run unmodified guests. Xen is a bear to set up from raw source, but as I understand it, it is fairly painless under RHEL 5/CentOS 5 and some recent versions of Fedora. You *do* have to read the documentation, but there *is* documentation. :) I can't offer you any advice for Macintoshes ... I've never owned one and odds are I never will. 4. While there are "free as in beer" Microsoft compilers, the "free as in freedom" compilers for Windows are dominated by the gcc port to either MinGW or Cygwin. I haven't checked recently to see if one is newer than the other, but both are true open source environments. So there are lots of options for people who want to run Ruby on a Windows box, ranging from the One-Click-Installer and Instant Rails to loading Cygwin and using the Cygwin pre-compiled Ruby. Or you can build your own from source on either Cygwin or MinGW. The Cygwin Ruby is slightly faster on my workstation at my day job than the One-Click Ruby, but not enough to justify a switch. But a Ruby recompiled with gcc from source for, say, a P4, probably would be significantly faster -- maybe as much as 30 percent. I for one think that's enough motivation to switch from the One-Click, but there is also the "religious" issue of whether you want to use a fully open source tool chain or not.