From: Ben Tilly <ben_tilly@...>
Date: 2000-12-22T10:25:28+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:7927] Re: Ruby on .NET? A Perl Experience

"Makhno" <mak@imakhno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > - Due to the enforced strong typing of the .NET environment the
> >   code runs slower than traditional Perl.
>
>How is strong typing supposed to *slow down* the interpretation of Perl
>[or any language for that matter]?\
>If anything, it should speed it up, as the scalar's type would not need to
>be determined everytime a scalar is used.

Central to Perl's design is that it is not typed, and will
cast to whatever it needs to be upon need.  Therefore in
the .NET environment a lot of CPU cycles need to be wasted
working around barriers in the environment.  That has to
hurt.

Whether or not Ruby would be helped will depend strongly on
whether there is a good way to map the dynamic typing
system used within Ruby to .NET's idea of what a type system
should be.  If it maps well, then Ruby won't be hurt.  If
there is an impedance mismatch, then Ruby will encounter
exactly the same problem that Perl does in that environment.

> > .NET compatibility may get to be a big deal,
>
>Depends what sort of 'restructuring' Microsoft have in mind after their
>recent stock plunge.

Agreed.

Also Microsoft has a serious brain drain right now.  If they
continue to have very poor Win2K sales, and face reluctance
to upgrade to Office 2K, this will only get worse.  People
got rich at Microsoft off of the stock growing.  Without that
incentive the best and the brightest will jump.  They will
still have lots of core areas, but it means stagnation.  IBM
faced the same thing, and came out of the tailspin in time.
I am sure that Microsoft can do the same.  But for the near
future they are vulnerable.

Finally they have a serious credibility gap.  Their security
record is nothing short of pathetic.  The more strongly
networked the environment is, the more that will matter.
And .NET is very heavily networked.

Personally I think that Ruby is a young language with enough
areas of possible growth that it doesn't need to jump aboard
the .NET bandwagon.  Indeed the .NET bandwagon is very
slight at this point, as far as I can tell it mainly consists
of companies being funded by Microsoft.  (Activestate, which
is porting both Perl and Python, is funded by Microsoft.)

Cheers,
Ben
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