il Thu, 01 Jul 2004 04:43:49 -0500, TLOlczyk <olczyk2002 / yahoo.com> ha
scritto::


This message may be trollish, but it seem it is'nt :)

>The first comment I would make is that I base my desires on features
>provided in languages created in the functional programming community.
>Languages such as Scheme/SML/OCaml/Haskell. [..] In
>effect most of these systems give short shrift to Windows. I preffer
>my code to work more or less the same on both types of OS.


have you tried DrScheme ? The GUI environment is based on wxwindows
and runs quite fine on windows. 

>The main thing I am looking for is a basic environment similar to
>functional languages. In particular a ( native-code ) compiler and
>an extensible REPL. By REPL I mean read-eval-print-loop, a fancy
>word for interpreter. To make clear what I want, and why I think
>it is a superior approach, I will now explain how it is used.

Why do you feel the need for a native code compiler,
Do you expect better performances or something else?

Anyway, about REPL env, that's what IRB is for:
>> def f
>>  10
>> end
=> nil
>> f
=> 10
>>

>Typically you open the file you are working on in emacs,vi or
>an IDE. ( Typically it would be emacs or vi. The IDEs available
>tend to be too primitive. Other editors might do but I am not
>aware of them. ) The you split the session into two windows
>and start your REPL in one.[..]

I think ruby-mode.el allows this. I usually do this in different
terminals, anyway, but that's quite subjective.

>
>Afdter a while the file is complete. Then you compile it into a
>library file or application. This way you get the speed of a compiled
>program with the flexibility of an interpreted program. And in
>some cases you need the speed. In others you don't. In others
>you don't know (eg libwww). Of course it would be nice to be
>able to build new REPL with libraries incorporated, or at
>least specified on the commandline. 

I'm not sure what you intended with the last statement, maybe
 irb -r mylib

It's really agreeable that better performance would be nice. I think a
JIT would be ok, anyway. 

If you feel that speed is such an important thing in your application
field, and that current C libraries or ruby extension are not a good
fit, I completely agree with you, ruby is not fine. 

OTOH IIRC there are some effort to build ruby2c, ruby2asm, and JIT
compilers for ruby. I hope those will mature with time, but I
understand you can't care about them.


>It would also be nice to have an optional core/image.
>That way if I run tests where testing uses a lot of data,
>I can save images when i debug later stages and
>save myself some time initializing.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you want to freeze the interpreter
in a given state? Or do you feel the need for some serialization
format that can be retrieved at any time fast? (in this case Marshal
could fit, maybe?)