Re: [Rubydotnet-developer] Undergrad project

[Tim S. <ti...@ih...>]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 09:56:51AM -0400, Richard Kilmer wrote:
> You may want to contact Robert Feldt: <fe...@ce...> (I Cc'd him on
> this message).
> 
> He has students working on a Ruby to CIL compiler (from his ruby-talk post):
> 
[...]
> http://www.pronovomundo.com/htu/theses2004/
> 
> Jan-?ke Hedstr?m, "RubySharp ? A Ruby to CIL Compiler"
[...]
> This paper describes the development of RubySharp, a proof-of-concept
> compiler. It is able to compile a subset of features from the dynamic
> programming language Ruby into CIL (Common Intermediate Language),
[...]

> On 6/30/04 3:50 AM, "Thomas Sondergaard" <th...@th...>
> wrote:
> I think the most interesting project in this realm is IronPython. Rather
> than bridging it is a rewrite of Python targetting IL. I don't think it
> is available yet, but you could google for it and get in contact with
> the author for details. Fundamentally he (IronPython) has the right idea
> - bridging anything to the current ruby runtime will remain mostly a
> hack, because I don't think you will be able to satisfactorily solve at
> least the following fundamental problems
> 
> 1) The dual-gc problem,
> 2) The ruby pseudo-threading versus .net native threading problem
[...]

Thanks to both of you for your comments.

The concern I have with dropping the current Ruby runtime entirely is
that then you're no longer dealing with Ruby, but instead have 'the
subset of Ruby that is currently supported by this .NET
compiler/interpreter'.

It would be interesting to combine a CIL compiler with the Ruby runtime
so we gain performance and integration when dealing with .NET stuff but can
also use normal Ruby code. I will certainly read the RubySharp paper.

A large part of my project will be considering what other people have
already done in this area, both by the people on this list and by projects
for other languages and systems. (e.g. Ruby and Python on Java projects.)

-- 
Tim Sutherland <ti...@ih...>
2004 President of SDKACM, the Software Developers' Klub Incorporated.
This is the University of Auckland ACM Student Chapter and is AUSA affiliated.
See http://www.sdkacm.com/ for information and resources.