From: Gregory Seidman <gsslist+ruby@...>
Date: 2008-06-08T23:10:03+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] MacRuby 0.2

On Sat, Jun 07, 2008 at 09:47:12AM +0900, Laurent Sansonetti wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> After 3 months of development, here comes the second release of
> MacRuby, 0.2! Check it out while it's still hot!
> 
> MacRuby is a version of Ruby 1.9, ported to run directly on top of Mac
> OS X core technologies such as the Objective-C common runtime and
> garbage collector, and the CoreFoundation framework. While still a
> work in progress, it is the goal of MacRuby to enable the creation of
> full-fledged Mac OS X applications which do not sacrifice performance
> in order to enjoy the benefits of using Ruby.
[...]

I realize this is a long shot, but I was wondering if there was any chance
that MacRuby could become available on the iPhone. I see two possible
technical difficulties and one possible political difficulty:

- Since ObjC on iPhone does not support garbage collection, there may be
  additional work to make the Ruby GC manage things with release/retain.

- Since the iPhone is battery-based, performance matters in terms of
  wattage, and a Ruby interpreter may be too inefficient for mobile use.

- Politically, since Apple expressly does not want interpreted code
  downloaded from elsewhere and run on the device (e.g. Flash, Java, or
  really anything other than JavaScript running in a web component),
  providing a language interpreter may appear to run against that interest.

I'm sure you, as an Apple employee, can't comment on the political issue or
the likelihood of MacRuby becoming available in the iPhone SDK (i.e. future
products). If you could comment on the two technical issues, though, I'd
appreciate it. Also, if you weren't thinking in terms of getting MacRuby on
the iPhone, please do; I'm working on an iPhone app now and Ruby would have
been a nice way to go about it.

> Enjoy,
> Laurent
--Greg