From: intc_ctor@... (Phil Tomson) Date: 2004-01-31T04:54:51+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby and Perl Integration sera@fhwang.net (Francis Hwang) wrote in message news:<7b561b93.0401300435.e529572@posting.google.com>... > Well, it would be one more option, wouldn't it? Right now you have two > choices: 1. Rewrite the functionality in a new Ruby library, or 2. Use > Perl. This would introduce a new in-between option. Nobody should be > forced to port code simply as a matter of principle. Yes, it would be an option and it might introduce more Perl programmers to Ruby. I was just pointing out that there could end up being unintended consequences if a bridge like that ended up working really well. > > I should say also, that one of the things that Ruby gives you as the > power to re-imagine how your library interface should look. If you're > going to design something that externally looks exactly like a Perl > library, then maybe there's not much point in re-writing it anyway. > > Francis Not much disagreement here either. Except the part about "then maybe there's not much point in re-writing it anyway". Some people wouldn't want to rely on a cross-language solution... so if they've decided to go with Ruby and they end up doing a port of a particular Perl library they need and it ends up looking pretty-much like it would in Perl, well, at least that's a starting point. It can always be 'Rubyfied' later. Phil > > ptkwt@aracnet.com (Phil Tomson) wrote in message news:... > > > Perhaps, but I suspect that if it worked well enough that no one would > > find the time to rewrite the code in Ruby. It could actually be > > counterproductive. People would just figure that well we can just grab > > the Perl module Foo::Bar and use it with the Perl_eval thingy and nobody > > would bother to actually translate Foo::Bar to Ruby and 'rubyfy' it. > > > > ...Not saying that you shouldn't try to make a bridge between the two > > languages just saying that this could be a consequence. > > > > Phil