Wednesday, September 13, 2006

JRuby: Thoughts from the Ruby.Net Camp

Dr. Wayne Kelly of the Ruby.NET camp, was kind enough to answer a couple of questions about the recent Sun move with JRuby for me. Here's what he said:


How do you think Sun's hiring of Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo to work on Jruby will affect Ruby as a language?

Wayne: Quality alternative implementations of Ruby will hopefully change the mindset that the Ruby language is defined by a particular implementation of that language.

This will hopefully lead to a more formal specification of the semantics of the language which will ultimately benefit developers. I believe Matz likes to say that "Ruby does what you expect it to do". That's an admirable goal, but it should be backed up with a document that states exactly what that is.

Making Ruby available on new platforms such as the JVM and .NET will also enable it to be used in scenarios where it wasn't previously applicable and will allow those communities to leverage one another's resources.

Your implementation of Ruby.NET?

Wayne: In implementing Ruby on .NET we have virtually the same technical challenges that JRuby faces. I have had discussions with Charles in the past and expect to continue doing so. The more time he has to work on JRuby - the greater his insight that we will be able to leverage.

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