From: MikkelFJ Date: 2002-10-05T08:08:53+09:00 Subject: Re: CRuby (Was: R) "Nikodemus Siivola" wrote in message news:Pine.GSO.4.44.0210050007520.5486-100000@kekkonen.cs.hut.fi... > You may very well turn out to be in the majority, but I feel differently. > If you had a formal definition of ruby, you'd end up having various > implementations, but never fully compatible. It's like saying don't make a dictionary over english words, someone might starting using the words and get it wrong. > IMHO that is the major problem of various languages: C, Scheme, etc. > haveyou. One language, one implementation is to me one of the strong > points of Perl, Java, Ruby, etc. Actually, C is one of the most cross-compatible languages - if there are quirks, it mostly relates to a) before the ANSI standard, b) not yet supporting C99 - but that doesn't break existing functionality. You can always find incompatible code due to platform dependencies but that is beside the point. C# is in the mono project is largely compatible with Microsofts implementation, except for some libraries. This is thanks to the specification Microsoft shipped along with the initial C# announcement. Java certainly has more than one implementation. But one implementation isn't necessarily bad - I just don't think the lack of a specification should decide that - then you might end up like Pascal: Pascal never really took over the world - mostly because Pascal source was tied to the implemented under which it was developed. I believe there are two Dylan implementations and one standard - and they are mostly source compatible. > But if there were such a specification, I'd hope it was a minimal as > possible: define a small core set of features, using which the rest could > be implemented. Yes - it shouldn't become a Java giant spec. which subsequently needs to be stripped many times to supported embedded Java. That said, the original Java VM spec. is a fairly readable, but that doesn't the libraries. Mikkel