Summer of Code Proposal

Ruby .NET – Ruby compiler on .NET platform.

INTRODUCTION

Ruby .NET is an Ruby compiler implementation on Microsoft .NET platform. Not just adding another .NET language, but Ruby developers could interop with .NET platform easily. Besides, we can expect some performance boost.

Project Page (temporary): http://lastmind.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/RubyDotNet

APPROACH

Now I’m considering IronPython approach: Iron Python (http://www.ironpython.com/) is a C# implementation of Python interpreter and works on CLR. It shows better performance than original Python interpreter implementation. I’ve investigate IronPython code and found that it just parse Python code, build AST, and translate to CLI code using .NET reflection. I believe I can take same appraoch in Ruby .NET.

ISSUES

– There’s no authentic Ruby syntax reference except the original Ruby compiler implementation.

"I’m afraid, the only complete reference for Ruby’s grammar is the YACC input file "parse.y" from the ruby source distribution."

(from http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/15608)

– Semantics for Ruby statements is just hardwired into Ruby compiler implementation.

RELATED PRODUCTS

Of course, I’ve seen around several efforts to develop Ruby .NET, but I believe no production-quality project is available so that It’s worth to trying.

IronPython: http://www.ironpython.com/
JRuby: http://jruby.sourceforge.net/
rubydotnet: http://rubydotnet.sourceforge.net/
NetRuby: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-PaloAlto/9251/ruby/nrb.html
Ruby .NET Compiler: http://www.asakawa.net/ruby/rubynet_memo.html
Ruby – Perl Parse::RecDescent grammar: http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/htdocs/parrot/Ruby.html
RubySharp: http://www.pronovomundo.com/htu/theses2004/rubysharp_hedstrom_thesis_final_040526.pdf

EXPERIENCE

Compiler theory is a crucial skill to develop Ruby .NET. I’ve finished compiler course for undergraduate in KAIST and I believe I have. I have 3.5 year C/C++ system/network programming experience in POSIX platform as an alternative job to military service. I am specially interested in distributed computing technologies in enterprise environment like several RPC technologies, CORBA, DCOM, .NET Remoting, Indigo, and Web Services. I love to learn programming languages like C/C++, Java, C#, Perl, Python, Ruby. Ruby is my favorite one these days.