Matz: Visions for the Future, or "How Ruby Sucks" (see slide 3). (Via Why)
Looks like Matz wants to do a slightly backwards-incompatible rewrite of Ruby to take care some of the rough spots and add some new features. Some of the new features are straight out of Python, some are new. He wants to base Ruby2 on a new VM called Rite. That page has most of the information on the slides, plus it addresses the question I was wondering as I read through the whole thing: "What about Parrot?":
Parrot doesn't affect matz's plans at all: he will make his own VM (Rite), which will be the reference implementation if Parrot is ever able to run Ruby code and becomes more popular than Rite.
Parrot promises top-notch speed and the ability to share libraries written in several language; many people remain rather sceptic on that regard. It is widely believed that matz's independent creation of a VM specific for Ruby could be completed faster and better than Parrot's all-encompassing goal.
Could be. It's a shame that there's such duplication of effort, but we'll see what happens. I suppose if Rite has good ideas, they could benefit everybody. Or, if Parrot winds up not doing what they need when it's finished, then they're certainly right to be going down the path they are. Or, if they wind up finishing first, even though Parrot has a two or three year head start, then they're totally justified. Of course, I don't want to judge... they're not "wrong" even if the only reason for them not using Parrot is "we didn't feel like it, and feel like building our own VM".
In any case, the scripting language scene just got a little more interesting in the long term.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
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