From: Dave@...
Date: 2002-08-06T08:21:25+09:00
Subject: Ruby Weekly News


   Ruby Weekly News: 08/05/2002

   A summary of activity on the ruby-talk mailing list, brought to you
   this week by Holden Glova.

   ANNOUNCEMENTS
   =============

   Linux Devices for Ruby 0.1.1
          Mathieu Bouchard has released a new version of his Linux
          Devices for Ruby. Get Linux Devices for Ruby([1]).

   FormatR 1.06
          Paul Rubel has released a new version of FormatR. FormatR is a
          Ruby version for perl-like formats([2]). Get FormatR([3]).

   GUItopia Initiated
          Tom Sawyer has initiated what he believes will be the ultimate
          GUI API. The ultimate GUI has been the topic of much discussion
          over the last year I have been a part of the Ruby community, as
          a result of that discussion the RogueProject([4]) emerged. Tom
          Sawyer has decided to try and take this further. He has put
          together a plan, and is welcoming discussion on this idea. Find
          out more about GUITopia([5]).

   INTERESTING THREADS
   ===================

   Alternate Ruby Implementations
          Justin Johnson started an interesting thread around the subject
          of implementing alternate Ruby implementations while still
          conforming to the "spec". This sparked the interest of David
          Alan Black about what exactly is the Ruby spec? Some discussion
          was had about this question, along with what the goal of an
          alternate implementation might be, and a long standing wish in
          the Ruby community for named method parameters. Great thread.

   Ruby and OCaml
          A veteran to the Ruby community has returned to -talk after a
          long journey into the mystic realm of OCaml. MikkelFJ sort of
          compares and constrasts differences between Ruby and OCaml from
          a very objective standpoint.

   Embed or SWIG?
          With Ruby it is easy to talk with C/C++ code. Some people such
          as Phil Tomson have said they use Ruby to unit test their C++
          code by providing a Ruby/C wrapper around their C++ code. Phil
          Tomson asked if it would make sense to wrap up all your C++
          objects so they can be used in Ruby. Others have posted that
          they generally program it in Ruby, if speed is an issue, the
          extract the bottleneck out into C/C++ and wrap it up with a
          Ruby/C wrapper. The result of the thread was that Phil has a
          good idea and others are also using this technique with good
          success. SWIG([6]) was also mentioned as the recommended way to
          quickly create Ruby/C wrappers.

References

   1. http://artengine.ca/matju/LinuxDevicesForRuby/LinuxDevices-0.1.1.tar.gz
   2. http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlform.html
   3. http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~rubel/FormatR/
   4. http://www.rubyide.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RougeProject
   5. http://www.rubygui.org/
   6. http://www.swig.org/