In article <3489058.BBMtYKWciU@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ruby project yields to Microsoft
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Microsoft, meanwhile, has welcomed Ruby.NET project participants to its
> | IronRuby project, licensed under the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL).
> `----
>
> http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/02/05/ruby_dot_net_ends/
A more accurate statement is that it is merging into IronRuby. IronRuby
was ahead in most areas, but Ruby.NET has a better parser, and that's
being adopted by IronRuby.
Here's what the head of Ruby.NET said:
Ruby.NET started life in 2005 as an academic research project with
the goals of learning more about the challenges of mapping a dynamic
language such as Ruby onto the relatively static CLI platform. When
we released our first beta in 2006, many people got excited and
started blogging about the project, at which time the project took
on a life of its own heading towards a production quality release
that people could one day actually use. The release of IronRuby last
year obviously caused us to question this unstated goal. At the time
we didn't know if the IronRuby project and the DLR would succeed, so
we decided to continue with Ruby.NET at that stage. Last week at the
Lang.NET Symposium, I presented our work on the Ruby.NET project and
also had the opportunity to learn more about the progress of the
IronRuby project and the inner workings of the DLR (and also the
JRuby project presented by Charles Nutter).
I've come to the conclusion that the DLR is clearly here to stay -
it's becoming an even more important part of the Microsoft platform.
I also believe that to obtain production quality performance,
Ruby.NET would need to reinvent (or adopt) something equivalent to
the DLR. If we were starting the project today, there is no way we
wouldn't use the DLR. Whilst Ruby.NET initially had a good head
start on the IronRuby project; by incorporating the Ruby.NET parser
and scanner and by leveraging the DLR, I now believe that IronRuby
is more likely to succeed as a production quality implementation of
Ruby on the .NET platform. I believe that ultimately there is no
need for two different implementations of Ruby on .NET. So, if
Ruby.NET is ultimately not going to be that implementation, then we
should not waste further developer effort fruitlessly chasing that
goal. There is still a massive amount `of work required to achieve
full semantic compatibility, to achieve production quality
performance and to get Rails to run robustly.
There have already been a number of practical and research outcomes
from the Ruby.NET project, however, at this stage, I believe we (the
Ruby.NET community) can make the biggest impact by levering our
experiences with Ruby.NET to contribute to the IronRuby and DLR
projects. Personally, I still feel we have unfinished business - we
set our selves the goal of running Rails on .NET and we haven't
achieved that yet. If we can leverage our experience to help
IronRuby get to that point, then I'd at least have the personal
satisfaction of helping see the job completed.
These are just my views. As a researcher, my prime interest is not
in developing products, but in developing innovative new ideas and
having an impact by having those ideas used in the real world. I'm
aware that others in the community will have different goals and so
will presumably have a different take on this - I'm keen to hear
what you think. If anyone wants to press ahead, then the code base
is still owned and controlled by you the community, so you are free
to do with it as you please with our full blessing.
I'd also like to make it very clear that this decision is entirely
my own - based on research and technical considerations. Microsoft
did not in any way suggest or encourage us to kill the project and
we thank them again for their support of the project.
I'd like to thank all of our contributors and supporters and
apologize if this decision comes as a disappointment. I hope many of
you will join me in contributing to the IronRuby project and see it
through to a successful completion.
--
--Tim Smith
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