From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-08-26T22:21:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Distributed Object Container

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Underdown" <junderdown@msn.com>


> Is anyone out there in the Ruby community working on an object
> container similar to those in J2EE app servers?  I'm aware of dRuby,
> but according to my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) an
> object container does a lot more than just enable remote access to
> objects, it also provides such things as caching of recently fetched
> objects, database connection pooling, and transactional support.  It
> seems to me that this would be a killer app for Ruby that would make
> it stand head and shoulders above Python and Perl.  It would also
> eliminate any last thoughts in my mind about using Java for web apps.

Good question.  Here's my take.

J2EE - more specifically, EJB - enables those nice things like pooling,
transactions, caching, security, persistance (it may provide more or less than
this ;).  You're asking if we can make Ruby do the same, somehow.

The problem is, Ruby is analogous to *Java* (a computer programming language),
not *EJB*, which is essentially a *standard* which is more to do with services
that *application servers* provide rather than a programming language.  The
only reason it has come about is because Sun has sat down with IBM, Oracle,
etc., and nutted out a standard so that EJBs can be deployed on all these
different application servers.  This is the benefit of Sun controlling Java -
they have the muscle and the organisation to create these agreements at a high
corporate level.

This is why I say to myself: Java is a good environment; it needs a good
language.

And it can't really be done in Ruby.  My hope is than within two years Ruby
code can be compiled into JVM byte-code (via Parrot?) so that the J2EE platform
can be used in Ruby, Python, Perl, ...

Gavin