From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-10-01T09:18:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby, Client/Server and Web Application


"Potchanat Samermit" <psamermit@jitsoftware.net> wrote in message
news:003c01c268d8$ce282fc0$6800a8c0@samermit1...
> I am new to Ruby. Just started to look at it. I did Smalltalk and now
> have been using Java and EJB. I wonder what it would be like to use Ruby
> for distributed and Web Application programming. Could someone help give
> me some light? Looking at Ruby warms my heart since it seems to have a
> lot of the old Smalltalk in it.

Welcome to Ruby

Phil Thomson (a regular in this group) wrote an article in a recent Dr.Dobbs
journal issue on using Ruby for distributed processing. It's so
embarrasingly easy in Ruby that no-one really pays attention to it, it's
just a tool. Since the article was published, someone wrote Ruby Inline for
embedding C in Ruby, compiling C as required - meaning it is very easy to
use Ruby to distribute C source for CPU intensive processing.
Web-programming is a bit mixed. Ruby does not have as much infrastructure as
you may find in Java or dedicated Web langauges - and worse, not many
hosting services support Ruby. That said, the language is well suited for
Web programming. It has decent CGI and, I belive, Fast-CGI support. There is
mod_ruby, and embedded Ruby (eRuby) for Apache. So you can certainly do web.
Yet you frequently see Ruby people using PHP for Web because they are
pragmatic and sometimes find other tools useful too.

Regards
Mikkel