From: daz <dooby@...10.karoo.co.uk>
Date: 2003-06-20T13:51:59+09:00
Subject: Re: reading ruby source


"Shashank Date" <sdate@everestkc.net> wrote:

> Is there a "best reading order" to the various C modules?
> Like where to begin, what may be skipped in the first pass, etc.
>

If you can accept the recommendation of someone with 10 minutes
experience, I'd suggest you open up array.c; skip to the bottom
where there's a list of 'rb_define_method' which are instance
methods for Array; pick one that has a familiar outcome like ...

  rb_define_method(rb_cArray, "compact", rb_ary_compact, 0);

.... search for rb_ary_compact, ignore 'rb_ary_compact_bang' for
a moment and you'll see that pretty soon one calls the other.
You can see the whole thing in a few lines.  You're not
debugging, so you can trust that whatever it calls is correct :-)


The chapter 'Extending Ruby' in the pickaxe tells about VALUE
(which, -incoming slap?- is a Ruby object) and some of the
INT2NUM etc. macros  (What a fine book).  Then pick another
method that you're more interested in and try to avoid chasing
depth until you're bored with the top level.


Good stuff.

Can't answer your other bits.  Whenever I try to compile
anything on Windows, I get an error message saying:-
 "Go away, you idiot." even though I've raked together every
Mingw, UNIXtool, Borland free compiler, DevC++ package that
I can; read about makefiles (yeeuch) and I call myself a
Systems Programmer.  I never used to be _this_ thick :((


Thanks for listening,


daz