"Edward Wilson" <web2ed / yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5174eed0.0208051713.5c10a2d8 / posting.google.com...

> If Ruby could compile to native, forget byte compilation.  The one

Actually one of Ocaml's strengths is its byte code compiler. The bytecode
(in an internal representation) is used to feed the native code compiler for
various platforms.
The bytecode allows for domain centric optimizations.

Ruby will not benefit as much from native compilation. The important issues
are efficient runtime libraries and inlining / reduction of function calls.

A good Ruby bytecode implementation would have an internal graph for the
bytecode, a bytecode emitter, and eventually several native code emitters
working off the same bytecode graph. The C-- project seems to progress
slowly, but www.cminusminus.org is an interesting project for native code
generation.


Mikkel