Hello David,


DR> I really do not like compiling software into bytecode.
DR> They wanted a standalone executable, they did not want
DR> any third party interpreters. 

You can have all in one interpreter binary, even DLL's. That is for
these people just the same.

DR> Okay in response to a few things that have been
DR> mentioned to me elsewhere. Even with dynamic nature of
DR> ruby, it is still possible to create a native
DR> compiler. You have to have a runtime running with it.
DR> It is difficult, and certainly something that would
DR> take a while. I'm tired of hearing, "It can't be done"
DR> in software programming. Just because people think it
DR> cannot be done doesn't mean they are right about it.

Oh, i don't say this. I just say that compiling it will not give you
any real advantage as long as you don't add type specifications to the
language. Otherwise the compiler would only have a very very small
performance advantage.

The only way to get some benefits is if you can assume that the system
is closed, means that now new ruby files are loaded and no internal
program structure is changed,  D, Eiffel and some Lisps are taking
this approach, it's called global program optimization and can give
a huge boost in evaluation speed because accessing a variable or
calling a method can be as fast as a native function call.
But is this restriction really usefull ?

I don't have the time to go into a deep description of how to solve this
problems with a good JIT compiler. So maybe you should read some texts
about this first.

DR> Why create a compiler to create stand alone
DR> executables?

DR> I find it difficult to have third part software
DR> installed on the computer. Also, if someone wants to
DR> include an application on a OS which I will not
DR> mention, they want a standalone that does not need a
DR> interpreter. This is one of the main reasons.

Right, but ExErb is just doing this. It's not a compiler, it does
exist and is a living project and it is in real life usage.
So this is not an argument for a compiler. If you are unsatisfied with
ExErb please spend your time there.


-- 
 Best regards,                        emailto: scholz at scriptolutions dot com
 Lothar Scholz                        http://www.ruby-ide.com
 CTO Scriptolutions                   Ruby, PHP, Python IDE 's