From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@...>
Date: 2002-02-22T12:04:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Compiled companion language for Ruby?

I think we first need to answer the question, "What do we expect to
*need* a companion language for?"

We don't need a companion language just to collect cool languages,
we need it to interface to system resources which Ruby can not
natively access (for some reason or another).  Or maybe we need
it for performance-critical code.

Based on what *I* (personally) think about that question, I think
the only reasonable answers to a "companion" language to Ruby would
be C, C++, or Objective-C.  I don't want a "companion" language of
Haskell if we're then just going to run in to the problem that we
still can't access some system resource because Haskell will have
no more access to that system-service than Ruby by itself has.

Note that I certainly want Ruby to be *usable* with a lot of languages,
but I think the roll of "companion language" is a specific one, with
specific requirements.

Me, I'd prefer Objective-C as a companion language, but I can see
an argument for sticking with plain C.  I am not fond of C++ at
all, as I think it's just about the antithesis of Ruby.  This is all
just my opinions, of course.

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn            =   gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer           or  gad@freebsd.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute    or  drosih@rpi.edu