ptkwt
10/23/2003 2:27:00 PM
In article <bn8ih9$u4jrb$1@ID-53633.news.uni-berlin.de>,
Josef 'Jupp' Schugt <jupp@gmx.de> wrote:
>Hi!
>
>The discussion on a Ruby oriented Linux is limited to init scripts in
>Ruby, Ruby scripts to compile software from source and the like.
>
>I think that much more people would benefit from Ruby tools that at
>least emulate but preferably extend Unix tools. This would e.g. allow
>Windows users to use such tools without having to install MKS toolkit
>or Cygwin. I think this would be a 'killer application' for Ruby.
But there's a bit of a 'chicken-or-egg' problem here: cygwin provides more
than just commandline tools to emulate a Unix environment, it also
provides lowlevel API compatibility (things like fork, for example that
don't exist in the Win32 api).
>
>Design guidelines should be:
>
> - Whenever feasible in terms of performace use plain Ruby. Only if
> absolutely unavoidable use a C extension that still is portable
> but requires compilation.
>
> - Start with the minimum functionality of the original Unix command
> and afterwards extend it to that of GNU tools or beyond.
>
>Most complex task: Creating a Ruby shell close to a Unix shell. It
>should start with the features of a true sh and then extend it to
>something close to a zsh. zsh is better than the obvious choice bash
>because it allows to use C style syntax for many control structures
>without the disadvantages of csh or tcsh.
A Ruby shell would be interesting.
Phil