Thank you all so much for your informative comments. I saved a few of them and read and re-read them in order so absorb all the good info. I especially liked Mikkel's 'article' at: http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/45787 Very informative! I may just put off learning OCaml for the time being and concentrate on Ruby. But I first would really like to be sure that Ruby will meet my needs for the foreseeable future. It has been said that OCaml integrates well with C, and the same has been said for Ruby. How about, does Ruby integrate well with OCaml or vice versy? And finally, I will rephrase one of my original questions. Does anyone know if the development plans for Ruby 2.0 still include a VM implementation? If and when that does come about, will Ruby still be an interperter but with byte-code compilation abilities? Please know that I am not trying to start any debate on the viability of any language over another. I, for one, have had my quota filled recently. ;-) TIA, Terry