From: Ned Konz <ned@...>
Date: 2002-06-25T00:00:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Embedded Ruby?

On Monday 24 June 2002 05:51 am, Steve Merrick wrote:
> I start a new job shortly, and I have to maintain an 8051-based
> assembly-language program. I have already been told that one of my
> first tasks will be to consider migrating it to a new language, to
> ease the difficulty of finding people to maintain it. Being
> 8051-based, resources are at a premium. It occurs to me that
> embedding Ruby is one possible option. Is there any information
> available on how to do this? Does one just build the source code
> (in C), and bundle a Ruby script in with it? Any hints gratefully
> accepted.

Ruby is a heavy user of RAM. It's unlikely that it would be a good 
choice for your system. It's also not small itself:

$ size -t /usr/local/lib/libruby.so.1.6 /lib/i686/libc.so.6 
/lib/i686/libm.so.6
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
 592269    7572   56788  656629   a04f5 /usr/local/lib/libruby.so.1.6
1226837   19296   16832 1262965  134575 /lib/i686/libc.so.6
 133386     452      84  133922   20b22 /lib/i686/libm.so.6
1952492   27320   73704 2053516  1f558c (TOTALS)

Though I hate to say it, your best bet is probably to use C. There is 
the SDCC compiler (http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/) which is free and 
targets the 8051, and there are commercial compilers as well.

-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com
GPG key ID: BEEA7EFE