From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2009-02-03T18:23:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Native gem roundup!

Jakub Pavl鱈k jn. wrote:
>> I'm curious what native gems/extensions people are typically using. In 
>> general it seems like most native extensions fall into two categories:
>>
>> * They are wrappers around a C API/library, as in zlib, rmagick, nokogiri
>> * They are written for performance reasons, to implement a particular 
>> algorithm in a native language or call a library for the same reasons
>>
>> And there's a lot of grey area, with some extensions falling in both 
>> categories.
>>
>> Wrappers can now largely be handled by FFI, and I hope more and more of 
>> them will use FFI as needed to access those libraries. But I'm concerned 
>> about extensions written for performance, since Ruby 1.9 and JRuby do 
>> almost as much to speed Ruby up.
>>
>> Ultimately, my quest is to eliminate Ruby's dependence on extensions for 
>> things FFI or "faster Ruby" could do, since it will improve the future 
>> for both the standard and alternative implementations.
>>
>> So, what native gems or extensions do you use? Why do you use them or 
>> why do they exist?
>>
>> - Charlie
> 
> I use RUDL or Rubygame (SDL wrappers) to make games;
> ruby-prof for profiling of these games, because pure Ruby profiler from the standard library slows programs too much down.

I think someone was working on SDL over FFI recently, but I don't 
remember who and I don't remember how far they got. I'd love to see it 
myself.

ruby-prof...noted. Seems like an essential tool for most folks, we'll 
just have to provide something.

- Charlie