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Wednesday, July 27, 2005It Can't Be Done
Lothar Scholz said the following when asked why he didn't write his IDE in all Ruby (from the Ruby mailing list):
A script language is just not powerfull enough for this task (speed, Now, I like Ruby, but I sometimes wonder with statements like the one above if he has looked at Smalltalk. I know Ruby runs slower than Squeak. But is it really too slow to support an IDE? I don't think so. Smalltalk is a perfect example of writing an IDE entirely in itself and it's been that way for a long time. It was even written on hardware that is not nearly as powerful as we have now. I think the problem is not that it can't be done, but how can you make your abstractions and objects work harder and do less. So, I wonder what the FreeRIDE (which is an all Ruby IDE) folks have to say. FreeRIDE is still rough around the edges, but every release it looks better and better. I would like to mention that Lother's IDE is good as well. Ruby is so close to Smalltalk and I think they would certainly enjoy an IDE that they could change at run-time and enjoy the same freedom that Smalltalkers do. It would certainly make Ruby more fun to program in. And that's a good thing! |
Comments
You know the funny thing about that? Arachnod Ruby has some pretty heavy system requirements.
By Vincent Foley, at 9:50 PM