From: Paul Brannan <pbrannan@...>
Date: 2002-07-26T08:49:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Opinion on Ruby maturity, the missing things

On Fri, Jul 26, 2002 at 07:09:59AM +0900, Paul E.C. Melis wrote:
> 1) it's not embeddable.
> 
> If you've ever tried using Ruby for, say, doing input text parsing (one of
> it's incredible strengths) in your C/C++ program (think config file or
> similar), then you know it's very difficult to embed Ruby cleanly into your
> app (I've tried and failed).

I'm curious about this.  I've embedded Ruby in more than a few
applications, and while it's not simple (I have to worry about
exception-safety, for example, which isn't an easy problem to begin
with), it's certainly not "very difficult," imo.

Some questions:
  a) What problems come up when embedding Ruby make it "very difficult"?
  b) Would more documentation on the subject be helpful?
  c) What do other languages (perl, python, scheme, etc.) do that make
     embedding them into applications easier?
  d) What else could Ruby do to make this task easier?  Would a library
     help?
  e) Has the author of this comment tried using SWIG?  Did it make his
     job easier or harder?

Paul