Re: Development of Windows version of Ruby

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002, Ron Jeffries wrote:

<--- snip, snip, snip --->
> 
> But there's no scapegoating implied. If Ruby is to be as popular as it deserves
> to be, my opinion is that there needs to be a good Windows version. While
> Windows isn't the best of anything, it's biggest. In my opinion it's not a good
> idea to ignore it.
> 
Well, as I indicated earlier, you can use Ruby to do pretty much anything
on Windows that you want to do using the Win32:: module.  However, its not
quite as simple and straightforward as using Ruby on Linux, since the
support is added on, rather than built-in.  And since Matz has indicated
that he really hopes that Ruby will take off and become incredibly
popular, it seems that having more built-in support for Windows services
would be a big step in that direction.  Unfortunately, my understanding is
that he has no real in-depth knowledge of the Windows OS, and has no real
interest in developing or obtaining that knowledge.  So, the logical
solution would be for him to "appoint" a knowledgeable and capable
assistant whose job would be to develop a set of built-in modules,
classes, etc. that would be compiled in when building Ruby for Windows,
but not when building Ruby for *nix.  Obviously, this would require alot
of ongoing coordination to keep things "in sync" as Ruby development
progresses.  I think I have the necessary knowledge base as I've done
quite a bit of work with both Windows and Linux.  Unfortunately, with a
full-time job, wife, and kids, I don't have alot of free time.  So, unless
we can get a company (ActiveState maybe?) to pay a few people for the
time they spend working with Ruby source code, I'll have to opt out.

Any other volunteers?  Also, if anyone on the list has access to Matz, it
would be interesting to see if he is interested in doing something along
these lines.

Dennis