From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-12-18T13:08:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Nature of ruby


"Nikodemus Siivola" <tsiivola@cc.hut.fi> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.44.0212180433310.10377-100000@kekkonen.cs.hut.fi...

> This bring to mind another question: could you separate the "language
> features" of ruby from it's "library features": what would be a minimal
> subset of ruby that you would be willing to call ruby?

The essential features are GC, scoping rules, runtime (re)definitions,
handling of object class module relationships, iterators, code blocks and
the built in syntax for strings, arrays and hashes - and possibly threading.
It follows that array, string, regexp and hash libraries need to be native
available in some basic version.
You'd also need IO support - although this can be dropped for embedded
usage.
eval, send are interesting, but hardly essential features of Ruby.

What prevents you from hacking Ruby in a week is that it takes at least a
week to just understand how the object system works.

Mikkel