From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2002-11-08T04:29:07+09:00
Subject: Re: bRuby? (Yet another Ruby parser)

In article <NCEJJNLDMEJLEJHKNGNHOEKLFDAA.robert.calco@verizon.net>,
Bob Calco <robert.calco@verizon.net> wrote:
>%% Are there other Ruby parsers out there?
>
>
>I am working on a parser - which I'm dubbing "Parse-R" - that will run as a
>standalone shared library and that is _not_ limited to being used as a Ruby
>Extension. In fact, direct hooks into the Ruby runtime are not a feature of
>my parser, on purpose; what I'm aiming for a is a generic Ruby parser that
>allows you to supply the necessary low-level hooks into the parser to do
>something interesting. The goal is to create a standard Ruby parser that can
>be used as the front end to many different tools - the interpreter, a source
>browser, a once-and-future byte-code compiler, etc.
>
>I started working in earnest again on it yesterday, as a matter of fact, and
>I hope to have a first release very soon. I know I have been saying this for
>a while... but I renewed my efforts to work on it yesterday (my birthday,
>not coincidentally), after having endured many challenges to spending any
>significant time on it. One of those have gone away, and measurable progress
>is expected in the near-term, like within a week or two.
>
>I have been conspicuously long on promises and short on results for this and
>other Ruby related projects to which I have long wanted to contribute. That
>will change, now that my situation has changed.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Bob
>
>%% >Right.  It seems that it is a library for
>%% >dumping/un-dumping ruby's internal syntax tree.
>%%
>%% Yet another Ruby parser.... Let's see, there's:
>%% Ripper: http://i.loveruby.net/archive/ripper/
>%% Ruth: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=26000
>%%
>%% and now bRuby.
>%%
>%% All three of these seem to modify Matz's Ruby Yacc file and create an
>%% extension from the resulting c file.



Yeah, I knew about Bob's project.

I guess the point of my question is that there seem to be at least six 
projects out there that are essentially doing the same thing.  Aren't we 
duplicating a lot of effort?  Is there any way we can work together on one 
of these parsers and possibly get results quicker?

Bob, 

Did you take a look at Ruth and Ripper before you started your project?  
If so how would you say what you are planning is different from those 
projects?

Phil