Bob X wrote:
> From the talkback:
> 
> "Ruby is over 10 years old, very popular in Japan, gaining popularity in
> other parts of the world, have thousands of users and hundreds of hackers.
> However, the implementation (Ruby has only 1 currently, written in C) is
> pretty weak. It's slow, does not support native threads, does not do JIT
> compilation (not even bytecode), needs a better GC, etc. It is especially so
> if we compare it with Java and Smalltalk, who have gotten real good
> implementations (JIT compilers, fast GC, threads, etc) nowadays."
> 
> Comments?

Slow: yup, slower than Python, C, Assembly and most other things... not a 
big issue for me most of the time, however.

Does not support native threads: not a major issue for me, but maybe for 
some people it is.

Does not do JIT compilation or bytecode: nope... not a major issue for me

Needs a better GC: really?  Not for me.

All in all, I think the criticisms are valid, but I don't care.  The way I 
use Ruby these problems haven't come up.  It's like someone saying that my 
swiss army knife doesn't have a saw.  If I ever need a saw that will make 
my swiss army knife less useful, but until I need one, it doesn't really 
interest me.

I think the 10 years of development is a bit of a red herring though.  I 
don't know how intense the development has been over those 10 years, but it 
is now at version 1.8, wheras Python is at 2.3 and Perl is at 5.8.  For an 
open-source type project where there is one main developer, no massive 
funding, etc. it isn't surprising that certain tweaks (JIT, bytecode, 
speed) haven't been added yet.  I'd be curious to see how Ruby 1.8 fares 
against Python 1.8 (if it existed) though.

I am curious though.  Regarding Ruby the environment, rather than Ruby the 
language, what is it that people would most want?  Native threads? 
Bytecode compilation?  Speed increases?  More memory-efficient GC?

Ben