From: MikkelFJ Date: 2002-11-21T07:33:32+09:00 Subject: Re: Need Ruby binding to open source middleware "Thomas Gagn�" wrote in message news:3DDBE15E.3080600@wide-open-west.com... > I am curious if a) I can enlist anyone's help here doing it > and b) how difficult do you think it might be? It's fairly easy to write Ruby extensions, and since the API is pretty straightforward, it shouldn't be a major concern. I don't know how the other language bindings were written, but given that the entire system is socket based, it would be really nice if the client API could be written in 100% pure Ruby. Ruby already has good socket support and most of isectd client code is socket abstraction in C. The benefit would be that any Ruby program would be able to interoperate out of the box without requiring extension dll's which would have to be ported and installed. Furthermore, it would make the Ruby port simpler, although writing a binding as not difficult. If you consider 100% pure Ruby as a viable approach, I suggest reading the DDJ article - it's got simple client server examples and is a quick read. Although we know Ruby better than you, you know isectd better than us, and Ruby is not difficult. Just be aware of some socket issues on Windows that supposedly has been fixed in Ruby stable release 1.6.8 and dev. release 1.7.3. I'm not into Ruby on Linux, but it's readily avaialbe. There are good installers for Windows. Ruby in itself functions as similar middleware and there has been written several distributed projects - see for instance drb: http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/articles/drb.html and http://www.ddj.com/articles/2002/0209/ (DDJ seems down at the time of writing). Still it would be nice to plug into a cross language, cross platform system such as isectd. References: http://www.ruby-lang.org http://www.rubygarden.com http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubyLanguage Ruby kickstart: good DDJ article: http://www.ddj.com/articles/2001/0101/0101b/0101b.htm Presentation: http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/talks/introruby/introruby.htm There is an online version of the Pragmatic Programmers "Programming Ruby", aka "The Pick Axe book" which is the de facto Ruby Bible - rubycentral DNS currently doesn't work for the time being, so use the IP version below. http://www.rubycentral.com/book http://165.193.140.17/book/ Mikkel