From: "James, Roshan (Cognizant)" <JRoshan@...>
Date: 2004-04-22T04:12:45+09:00
Subject: Re: A Ruby WishList

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//  http://www.ruby-talk.com/blade/2710
//  http://www.ruby-talk.com/blade/5961
Thank you, these were awesome reading.=20

//
//>  - Ruby on .Net
//
//There has been some efforts on this. This will require at least a=20
//partial rewrite of Ruby probably to C#. I'd rather see Ruby=20
//being ported=20
//to Parrot first though (Parrot will also run on Windows and a myriad=20
//others that .NET/Mono won't).

I beg to disagree that Ruby'd rather be ported to Parrot. When it comes
to .net, I (would like to think I) understand somethings. See Ruby is a
lovely language, truly. Where Microsoft is taking the .Net framework is
indicatoive of making the framework the future runtime for the windows
operating system, at par if not better than the services offered to the
C runtime. Like for example some of the new API available in Loghown
will be completely managed API. Also the way Miguel's (Mono) team is
working, Mono will be fairly mainstream on *nix boxes as well.=20

The popularity of ruby will depend less on how many diverse machines it
runs on and more on how many populist systems it can embrace.=20

Don't get me wrong, all I am saying is that the .net is geared to go
places and it already is in the enterprise spehere. The merits of
platform that provides a true level playing field across languages is
slowing showing its strenght in the enterprise. That is probably an
amazing oppurtunity for Ruby to leverage because the expressive power
that the language provides is awesome. To be at par with enterprise
computing with C# or VB.net will only ensure Ruby's survival for a long
time.=20

Please do give it some thought before you let it go.=20


//>  - Auto initialisation of variables
//
//If you don't declare variables first, Ruby can't know if it's=20
//a method=20
//or a local variable:
//
//  def sum; ...; end
//  def sum=3D; ...; end
//  sum =3D sum+1   # this will invoke the sum and sum=3D methods.
//
//  sum =3D 2
//  sum =3D sum+1   # this will increment the sum local variable.
//
//  sum           # now if you don't declare it first, what is sum? a
//                # method or a local variable
//
//However, you don't need to predeclare $global or Constant=20
//because they=20
//can't be confused with methods.

Well the syntax I suggested with <> simply could apply primitive value
intialisation to types that have not been declared before, without much
ambiguity. Or am I missing something?=20
Let me paste it here:

Like I could probably replace:
 sum  =3D 0=20
 prod =3D 1
 10.times {|n| sum =3D sum + n; prod =3D prod * n }
with
 10.times {|n| sum =3D sum<0> + n; prod =3D prod<1> + n; }

<http://pensieve.thinkingms.com/CommentView,guid,1a1045a1-bec1-45c7-97e9
-f3c9f7937cc7.aspx>

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