On 5/3/05, Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby / zenspider.com> wrote:
> 
> On May 3, 2005, at 3:45 PM, Eric Hodel wrote:
> 
> > On 03 May 2005, at 15:21, Ryan Davis wrote:
> >
> >> If you want performance then you should either hand write (using
> >> RubyInline!) or take a peek at zenoptimizer when it gets released in
> >> my ZenHacks package (it uses a combination of ruby2c and rubyinline
> >> with a custom lightweight profiler I wrote last week).
> >
> > Yes.  When you find a slow part, you could use this as your template.
> > You'll have working Ruby/C code to refactor into faster C code in no
> > time at all.
> 
> oooh. I didn't think of that. Not sure why. :P
> 
> > I should be able to skip rb_funcall for places where I know the types,
> > and directly call the C implementation of a method.  That will be more
> > work though, because I'll have to fall back in case a TypeError is
> > raised in addition to pulling the right bits from the VALUE.
> 
> *nod*
> 
> I expect that we'll do a version down the line that includes
> TypeChecker in the SexpProcessor pipeline and we'll have better sends
> in that version.
> 
> Isn't it cool that we have these discussions out on a public list like
> ruby-talk??? It is almost like, oh I dunno, we want people to look at
> the software! ;)

Not being a c programmer, I've been watching this thread (and some
others) mostly out of curiousity.  But I'm beginning to get the
impression that the two of you are on the verge of having a full Ruby
to C converter.  Is that an overestimate?

If a full conversion is likely, any idea on a time line?  What would
be the likely limitations?

Write it in Ruby, convert it to c, compile it, distribute it.  That
really would be something.  Especially for the non c programmers like
myself :)

-- 
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)