From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2002-07-31T02:59:38+09:00
Subject: Re: ActiveRubyScript and RubyAEOSA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Gehlker" <gehlker@fastq.com>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 12:46 PM
Subject: ActiveRubyScript and RubyAEOSA


> I just discovered ActiveRubyScript (sometimes written as two words) by
> following up on a  reference here. I haven't had a chance to play with it
> yet but I'm installing a Windows emulator in the background so I can play
> with it.

Isn't it actually called ActiveScriptRuby? I'm
going from memory here...

> How important is it? How much is it like Ruby.

I'd say it *is* Ruby -- an embeddable version of the
interpreter (embeddable in the sense of Windows Script
Host, etc.). For example, using ASR, your Internet
Explorer can run Ruby scripts just as (out of the box)
it runs Javascript code.

Having said that it "is" Ruby, there may be differences
I'm not aware of.

How important? Only if 1) you're using Windows and 2) you
want to use an embedded Ruby interpreter. And then there
might be other ways.

> It doesn't appear to be much like RubyAEOSA. Is this important?

I don't know about that. Can you elaborate?

> I'm sort of a *nix newbie but thumbing through "Unix in a Nutshell" there
> don't appear to be *any* 'scripting languages' in the Visual
> Basic/JavaScript/AppleScript sense or for that matter any scriptable
> applications.[1] I don't doubt that this is related to the linear nature
of
> many Unix apps that has been mentioned here before. But that raises the
> question of will there ever be scriptable Unix apps, and if the answer is
> yes, shouldn't there be a single Ruby syntax for addressing them.

Interesting viewpoint. Personally I would say that
the Unix world *invented* the scriptable app and
perhaps the concept of a scripting language (as
opposed to the old job control languages). Flames
to /dev/null, please. :)

But I think I see what you are saying. You want
apps to expose an interface the way Windows apps
expose a COM interface, or something, right? Or
am I misunderstanding?

Well, I have often wished for a COM equivalent in
the Unix world. It would only be useful if there
were one universal standard, I think. My knowledge
of this particular area is limited, though, so I
can't address it much.

But please, let's generate some discussion on this.

Hal