Asp Forum - ruby interpreter written in ruby..

Eelco

2/8/2009 9:45:00 AM

Hi there,

I am new to programming and ruby.. Trying to read through the pickaxe
and do the exercises on Sphere Online Judge.
I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter available?
somehow i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.

greetz Cat

12 Answers

Ryan Davis

2/8/2009 9:57:00 AM

On Feb 8, 2009, at 01:45 , Eelco wrote:

> I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter available?
> somehow i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.

no, not 100% (yet) at least. the rubinius project is farthest along in
that effort.

http://...

the doco on that site is... well... not good. Just download the source
and poke around. There is a fair amount in C++ still (last I looked)
but a lot more pure ruby code than available in MRI or any other ruby
impl project (last I looked).

Dylan Evans

2/8/2009 11:40:00 AM

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 7:45 PM, Eelco <catsquotl@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I am new to programming and ruby.. Trying to read through the pickaxe and
> do the exercises on Sphere Online Judge.
> I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter available? somehow
> i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.
>
> greetz Cat
>
>
It seems to me that would be pointless, since it would require another
interpreter to function. Of course the other alternative would be to write a
ruby compiler which would be awkward in a dynamic language. Of course if it
wasn't actually compiled then you would have the overhead of interpreting a
stack of ruby. Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?

--
The UNIX system has a command, nice ... in order to be nice to the other
users. Nobody ever uses it." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Eelco

2/8/2009 12:14:00 PM

Dylan Evans schreef:
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 7:45 PM, Eelco <catsquotl@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I am new to programming and ruby.. Trying to read through the pickaxe and
>> do the exercises on Sphere Online Judge.
>> I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter available? somehow
>> i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.
>>
>> greetz Cat
>>
>>
>>
> It seems to me that would be pointless, since it would require another
> interpreter to function. Of course the other alternative would be to write a
> ruby compiler which would be awkward in a dynamic language. Of course if it
> wasn't actually compiled then you would have the overhead of interpreting a
> stack of ruby. Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?
>
>
>
That makes sense......
I wasn`t thinking about the why or what..
Just as this is the first language i am trying to understand i thought i
could learn a lot by reading the code
As C is jibberish to me..

Eelco

Tim Hunter

2/8/2009 1:26:00 PM

Eelco wrote:
> I wasn`t thinking about the why or what..
> Just as this is the first language i am trying to understand i thought i
> could learn a lot by reading the code

There's a huge amount of very good Ruby code out there in Ruby libraries
and applications. Rails, Rake, RubyGems. All written in Ruby.

Also take a look at the past Ruby quizzes (rubyquiz.com)

--
RMagick: http://rmagick.ruby...

Julian Leviston

2/8/2009 2:22:00 PM

Smalltalk is written in itself. It's quite useful! You can understand
a lot about a language if it has such a high level of self-
describingness. Rubinius is such a project.

Blog: http://random8.ze...
Learn rails: http://sensei.ze...

On 08/02/2009, at 10:40 PM, Dylan Evans <dylan.star@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 7:45 PM, Eelco <catsquotl@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I am new to programming and ruby.. Trying to read through the
>> pickaxe and
>> do the exercises on Sphere Online Judge.
>> I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter available?
>> somehow
>> i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.
>>
>> greetz Cat
>>
>>
> It seems to me that would be pointless, since it would require another
> interpreter to function. Of course the other alternative would be to
> write a
> ruby compiler which would be awkward in a dynamic language. Of
> course if it
> wasn't actually compiled then you would have the overhead of
> interpreting a
> stack of ruby. Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?
>
>
> --
> The UNIX system has a command, nice ... in order to be nice to the
> other
> users. Nobody ever uses it." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Ryan Davis

2/8/2009 9:56:00 PM

On Feb 8, 2009, at 03:40 , Dylan Evans wrote:

> It seems to me that would be pointless, since it would require another
> interpreter to function. Of course the other alternative would be to
> write a
> ruby compiler which would be awkward in a dynamic language. Of
> course if it
> wasn't actually compiled then you would have the overhead of
> interpreting a
> stack of ruby. Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?

smalltalk (squeak, at the very least), many lisps/schemes, factor,
every language designed by wirth... yeah. must be pointless. :P

John Carter

2/8/2009 10:43:00 PM

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Dylan Evans wrote:

>> I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter available? somehow
>> i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.

Hokay, so this is at the trivial "HEY! You Cheated!!" level... but
it's still useful...

ri 'Kernel#eval'
------------------------------------------------------------ Kernel#eval
eval(string [, binding [, filename [,lineno]]]) => obj
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evaluates the Ruby expression(s) in _string_. If _binding_ is
given, the evaluation is performed in its context. The binding may
be a +Binding+ object or a +Proc+ object. If the optional
_filename_ and _lineno_ parameters are present, they will be used
when reporting syntax errors.

def getBinding(str)
return binding
end
str = "hello"
eval "str + ' Fred'" #=> "hello Fred"
eval "str + ' Fred'", getBinding("bye") #=> "bye Fred"

> Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?

Actually the original poster asked a very intelligent question.

Why would you want such a thing?

It's a _very_ effective measure of the simplicity and expressiveness
combined of the language.

For example, here is a minimal (non-trivial) Joy0 interpeter written
in Joy0 that will interpret itself.
Source http://www.latrobe.edu.au/philosophy/phimvt/joy/jp-j...

joy0 ==
[ [ [ joy0 body joy0 ]
[ [] ]
[ pop pop pop ]
[ cons pop cons ]
[ opcase pop opcase ]
[ body pop body ]
[ i pop joy0 ]
[ step pop [joy0] cons step ]
[ [] cons i ] ]
opcase
i ]
step

Yup. That was it. All of it.

Says something very very powerful about the simplicity of the Joy
language.

I'll admit I learnt several things about the language when I read that
close enough to understand it.

I bet you'd have a good few "Aha!" moments if you could do the same
with Ruby.

Conversely, if you could strip Ruby to a Ruby0 essence in which you
could easily write a ruby0 in ruby0 interpreter... you'd learn what
was the essence of the language and what was sugar.

John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz
New Zealand

Dylan Evans

2/9/2009 1:52:00 AM

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby@zenspider.com> wrote:

>
> On Feb 8, 2009, at 03:40 , Dylan Evans wrote:
>
> It seems to me that would be pointless, since it would require another
>> interpreter to function. Of course the other alternative would be to write
>> a
>> ruby compiler which would be awkward in a dynamic language. Of course if
>> it
>> wasn't actually compiled then you would have the overhead of interpreting
>> a
>> stack of ruby. Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?
>>
>
> smalltalk (squeak, at the very least), many lisps/schemes, factor, every
> language designed by wirth... yeah. must be pointless. :P
>
>
> I see that squeak uses a C translator for it's implementation which is
kinda cool, and the lisps use either a bootstrap implementation or a
translator.I was just thinking of a plain ruby interpreter entirely in ruby,
which really would be pointless.
Of course new languages written in interpreted languages can be good
prototypes.

--
The UNIX system has a command, nice ... in order to be nice to the other
users. Nobody ever uses it." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Julian Leviston

2/9/2009 2:50:00 AM

I don't think a measure such as that is useful for anything much. IMHO
you'd want a language written in itself so you could understand it
better at a lower level: pedagogy.

Blog: http://random8.ze...
Learn rails: http://sensei.ze...

On 09/02/2009, at 9:42 AM, John Carter <john.carter@tait.co.nz> wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Dylan Evans wrote:
>
>>> I was wondering is there a ruby written ruby interpreter
>>> available? somehow
>>> i`d like to be able to read the interpreter source.
>
> Hokay, so this is at the trivial "HEY! You Cheated!!" level... but
> it's still useful...
>
> ri 'Kernel#eval'
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Kernel#eval
> eval(string [, binding [, filename [,lineno]]]) => obj
> ---
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Evaluates the Ruby expression(s) in _string_. If _binding_ is
> given, the evaluation is performed in its context. The binding may
> be a +Binding+ object or a +Proc+ object. If the optional
> _filename_ and _lineno_ parameters are present, they will be used
> when reporting syntax errors.
>
> def getBinding(str)
> return binding
> end
> str = "hello"
> eval "str + ' Fred'" #=> "hello Fred"
> eval "str + ' Fred'", getBinding("bye") #=> "bye Fred"
>
>
>> Why would you want a ruby interpreter written in ruby?
>
> Actually the original poster asked a very intelligent question.
>
> Why would you want such a thing?
>
> It's a _very_ effective measure of the simplicity and expressiveness
> combined of the language.
>
> For example, here is a minimal (non-trivial) Joy0 interpeter written
> in Joy0 that will interpret itself.
> Source http://www.latrobe.edu.au/philosophy/phimvt/joy/jp-j...
>
> joy0 ==
> [ [ [ joy0 body joy0 ]
> [ [] ]
> [ pop pop pop ]
> [ cons pop cons ]
> [ opcase pop opcase ]
> [ body pop body ]
> [ i pop joy0 ]
> [ step pop [joy0] cons step ]
> [ [] cons i ] ]
> opcase
> i ]
> step
>
>
> Yup. That was it. All of it.
>
> Says something very very powerful about the simplicity of the Joy
> language.
>
> I'll admit I learnt several things about the language when I read that
> close enough to understand it.
>
> I bet you'd have a good few "Aha!" moments if you could do the same
> with Ruby.
>
> Conversely, if you could strip Ruby to a Ruby0 essence in which you
> could easily write a ruby0 in ruby0 interpreter... you'd learn what
> was the essence of the language and what was sugar.
>
>
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz
> New Zealand
>
>

Ryan Davis

2/9/2009 6:54:00 AM

On Feb 8, 2009, at 17:51 , Dylan Evans wrote:

> I see that squeak uses a C translator for it's implementation which is
> kinda cool, and the lisps use either a bootstrap implementation or a
> translator.I was just thinking of a plain ruby interpreter entirely
> in ruby,
> which really would be pointless.

there you go using that word ("pointless") again... As someone who
worked on smalltalk for many years and was working on metaruby before
I was professionally working on rubinius, I have to highly disagree.
I'm gonna leave it at that tho.

comp.lang.ruby

ruby interpreter written in ruby..

Eelco

Ryan Davis

Dylan Evans

Eelco

Tim Hunter

Julian Leviston

Ryan Davis

John Carter

Dylan Evans

Julian Leviston

Ryan Davis

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