Hi guys,

A few weeks ago, sbdy talked to me about Ruby, and Rails, and how 
beautiful /sniff/ the language is. I took a look at it, and indeed, I 
love the simplicity, or let me rephrase, the humanity of the language. 
Definitely because I have a background in C/C++/Java, the first one 
missing the ability of easy 'meta-languaging', the second one being 
basically an OO hack of the first one (no offense meant), and the third 
one, well, ok, close but no cigar. The company I work for builds tool 
for optimizing algorithms (mainly multimedia applications), from the raw 
description until the target platform. The problem is that all those 
tools only accept C. I believe that Ruby might be a better choice for 
this, definitely in the early stages of the optimization, because you 
can analyse your program from a layer above it, which according to Godel 
is sometimes necessary. So in my off-duty time, I'm building some 
examples to convince them. But alas, I already now their first question, 
and have no answer to it, and that's why I phrase it here: What if the 
code is optimized, how do you go to a platform with specific processors 
on them? For C, many are out there. So here is my question to you guys:

1) Are there any efforts, or is it at all possible, to write a Ruby 
compiler, for lets say a TI/C64 DSP processor?

2) If the answer to the first question is negative, how good is the 
(http://easter.kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~hiwada/ruby/rb2c/) ruby to C 
convertor? I did not have a look at it, and wont have time probably in 
the near future, but can it handle any Ruby code? That would be amazing, 
as there not even really good C++ -> C convertors. Does it handle 'your 
typical Ruby' constructions? I would already be happy if it can handle 
C-alike code mixed with classes.

I know, an obvious answer would be, try it yourself, but if sbdy can 
shed a light, that would be a big motivation/demotivation. One answer I 
can imagine is that Ruby is not targeted for such low-level stuff.

Best regards,

Bart.