From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2002-06-25T12:32:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Embedded Ruby?

In article <af74ao$mfv$1@newsfeed.pit.comms.marconi.com>,
Steve Merrick <Steve.Merrick@anti-spam.Marconi.com> 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.
>

Hmmm.... unless somebody has built a very stripped down version of Ruby or 
unless the 8051's address space has been seriously increased since I 
worked with 'em back in the late '80s, I really doubt you'll get Ruby to 
work in that environment.  As I recall the 8051 addresses 64K, but there 
were some other versions that came out that could address 128K by use of 
some special tricks.  I kind of doubt you would be able to get Ruby to 
play in that small of an address space and still be able to run any useful 
programs with it...  Could you convince'em to move to the StrongARM? ;-)

>"Who cares, wins"
>
>P.S. I've seen stuff about 'eRuby' - which I assume is 'embedded Ruby',
>but I can't seem to find it again.... :-(

I think eRuby has something to do with embedding Ruby in HTML...  not what 
you think.

Phil