On 25 Aug 2001 06:45:25 +0900, John Beppu wrote:
> [  date  ] 2001/08/25 | Saturday | 04:33 AM
> [ author ] Sean Middleditch <elanthis / users.sourceforge.net> 
> 
> > What I'm wondering is what people think of a "language" like this.  One
> > that can have a compiler that understand's a C-like syntax, a Ruby-like
> > syntax, LISP-like, whatever, but all runs on one backend, ...
> 
> This reminds me of the Common Language Runtime portion of
> Microsoft's .NET .

Ya, that's what I was thinking, too.  Although CLR will presumably be
far more powerful and... bigger... than my language (still not set on
what to call it).

> 
> > (a) easy to embed, 
> > (b) fast 
> > (c) easy on the script programmer.  
> 
> On which requirement(s?) is Ruby falling short on?
> Would it be possible to change Ruby to suit your needs
> better.  If so, what about Ruby would you want to see changed?
> 

Well, the C API is a little weird in places.  Like rb_strnew2().  Rather
a meaningless name.  Also, trying to do simple things like call a
function in Ruby from C when all you know is the function name is a pain
- when the function name is stored in a script, and may be something
like "game::instance.script_call" and you have to dynamically generate
the arguments from the execution point (i.e. a script effect when
swinging a sword in a game) takes a bit of work.

Ruby has to have special stuff done in order to sandbox it completely.
it wasn't designed from the gound up with the intention of being run
completely embedded.

Ruby is way larger than what I want.  It has tons of features that are
awesome for application programming, which is great, but is a bit of
overkill for what would be done in an embedded script.  For example, an
eval() command requires that the entire parser and compiler be part of
the language runtime, when an eval() command should never ever be needed
- if it is, it's a flaw in the language or the code (that's my opinion,
that's all, please let's not start a flame war on this...)

I dream a lot and dream that someday my language might be used in large
commercial games.  LGPL is great and all, but corporations fear what a
programmer might understand.  In other words, I'm using the BSD(MIT?)
style license, for wider usage.

In short, Ruby is really great for application programming, but for
small simple tasks where Ruby is overkill, well, Ruby is overkill.  ~,^
I had thought about stripping Ruby down, but then I realized how much
time I'd spend keeping up to date with Ruby development, security holes
and new language features and such.

The deciding factor was really that I've never written a full language,
and I wanted the experience.  ^,^

> > Although, I will admit, Ruby is the best I've seen to date, and it's
> > what I'm currently using as an embedded language.
> 
> -- 
> package wuv'apqvjgt;($_=join('',(*PgtnHcemgt))) # print map "beppu\@$_\n", qw(
> =~ s/([HaP])(?!e)/ \U>$1/g;s/^.|:| (?=A)|>//g;y # cpan.org  lbox.org  binq.org