Best compiled language for extending Ruby

[Sharkie Landshark]

I want to write my core logics in a compiled language for 1) performance
and 2) protecting my source code -- in case I will be selling my product
to a customer.

What would be the most natural-supported-easy-fast language to do this
in, given the many choices of language bridges?

I am particularly interested in,

1) C
2) Objective C
3) Ocaml
4) Lisp (SBCL)
5) Scheme

Does anyone have experience and would like to share?

I will be coding in OS X and deploying in FreeBSD mostly.

Thanks

Shark

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I want to write my core logics in a compiled language for 1) performance
and 2) protecting my source code -- in case I will be selling my product
to a customer.

What would be the most natural-supported-easy-fast language to do this
in, given the many choices of language bridges?

I am particularly interested in,

1) C
2) Objective C
3) Ocaml
4) Lisp (SBCL)
5) Scheme

Does anyone have experience and would like to share?

I will be coding in OS X and deploying in FreeBSD mostly.

The only one of these for which a well-documented interface exists is C.
C++ can be made to work, but Ruby itself is written in C.

I'm sure it's possible to write extensions in the other four languages
and build a C interface, so if your algorithms are more naturally
expressed in one of them, by all means use one of them. By the way,
which Scheme(s) were you considering? Quite a few of them compile to C
now, so that might make a Ruby interface easier.

 

[Sharkie Landshark]

I am thinking of Stalin Scheme, and that is because I hear it is fast.
My first programming language is Scheme, and that is still my favorite.
I like Ruby because I find it similar to Lisp/Scheme -- in a strange
way.

Anyway, can I compile Stalin Scheme to C, or is there a high performance
scheme that will compile to C? It will allow me to get my work done
fastest, and most naturally suite my logics. I am very excited in
hearing that it can compile to C.

 

[tho_mica_l]

I am very excited in hearing that it can compile to C.

You can also compile ruby to C. Does this mean the code is in general
as
efficient as hand-coded C? No. Maybe for certain purposes.

Why would you combine Scheme and Ruby? If you like Scheme, use it.

BTW there are quite a few Scheme implementations that compile to
native
code. MzScheme (PLT), Chicken, Bigloo (which compiles also to Java),
Larency (which I have never tried) etc.

because I hear it is fast.

Frankly, I'd suggest to actually test it and ask again later.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I am thinking of Stalin Scheme, and that is because I hear it is fast.
My first programming language is Scheme, and that is still my favorite.
I like Ruby because I find it similar to Lisp/Scheme -- in a strange
way.

Anyway, can I compile Stalin Scheme to C, or is there a high performance
scheme that will compile to C? It will allow me to get my work done
fastest, and most naturally suite my logics. I am very excited in
hearing that it can compile to C.

There are several Scheme-to-C processors that I know of, and there are
lots of published speed benchmarks. The ones I can recall off the top of
my head are bigloo, larceny, gambit-c and chicken. I personally like
gambit-c because it has an Erlang-like lightweight process extension
called Termite. And I'm pretty sure Chicken has a SWIG interface, which
means you could drive common C libraries from both Chicken and Ruby via
SWIG.

If you head over to comp.lang.scheme, I think you'll get plenty of answers.

 

[Chad Perrin]

You can also compile ruby to C.

(perhaps slightly off-topic)

What tool(s) would you recommend for that?

 

[tho_mica_l]

What tool(s) would you recommend for that?

The full sentence probably should have been: There are a few scripts
that translate a subset of ruby to C. I don't think they are ready for
prime time.

With respect to "stalin", IIRC early editions of the language shootout
included timings for this compiler.

 

[John Joyce]

There is a backward way of using Objective-C
You create a lib in Objective-C and then use the RubyCocoa approach...
Of course, this isn't very portable...

 

[jwmerrill]

I want to write my core logics in a compiled language for 1) performance
and 2) protecting my source code -- in case I will be selling my product
to a customer.

What would be the most natural-supported-easy-fast language to do this
in, given the many choices of language bridges?

I am particularly interested in,

1) C
2) Objective C
3) Ocaml
4) Lisp (SBCL)
5) Scheme

Does anyone have experience and would like to share?

I will be coding in OS X and deploying in FreeBSD mostly.

Thanks

Shark

There's rocaml: http://eigenclass.org/hiki/rocaml . Never used it,
but thought I'd mention it.

JM

 

[Vitor Peres]

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

I am thinking of Stalin Scheme, and that is because I hear it is fast.
My first programming language is Scheme, and that is still my favorite.
I like Ruby because I find it similar to Lisp/Scheme -- in a strange
way.

Stalin is great, and all, but it isn't a full Scheme implementation (AFAIK
it's mostly R4RS compatible). It's fast, indeed, but if you're thinking of
enjoying Scheme in its entirety, I don't think it's the best choice.

 

[SunRaySon]

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

I had developed some applications using smalltalk but they are small utility
programs. I would prefer smalltalk for utility programs but I am not sure if
this is a good choice for getting good performance.

Kiran

 

[Jean-François Trân]

Stalin is great,

I would never imagine to read such a sentence in this mailing-list.

and all, but it isn't a full Scheme implementation (AFAIK
it's mostly R4RS compatible). It's fast, indeed, but if you're thinking o= f
enjoying Scheme in its entirety, I don't think it's the best choice.

Thinking about the importance of context...

-- Jean-Fran=E7ois.

 

[Vitor Peres]
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 

[Luiz Vitor Martinez Cardoso]

You can write your libs in Ruby/Python/Perl and use SWIG to convert this to
C or vice-versa.

Regards,
Luiz Vitor Martinez Cardoso.

I guess I should have padded that statement with disclaimers. And I guess
locking my door against those damn KGB agents would have helped, as well.
Alas, I have to smile every time they walk by and make me swear
allegiance.

--=20
Regards,
Luiz Vitor Martinez Cardoso [Grabber].
(11) 8187-8662

engineer student at maua.br

 

[MonkeeSage]

There's rocaml:http://eigenclass.org/hiki/rocaml. Never used it,
but thought I'd mention it.

JM

I've been using rocaml lately, and I like it. OCaml isn't Haskell, but
nobody's perfect! Seriously though, OCaml fits very well (imho)
with the style of ruby (Hindley-Milner type inference + structural
typing is very similar to duck typing), and rocaml makes it easy to
write extensions since it auto-generates all the glue code for you
(similar to SWIG). You basically write a .ml file as you normally
would, declare a few things about the interface, and rocaml does the
rest. Doesn't work on windows yet I don't think (OCaml does, just not
rocaml).

Regards,
Jordan

 

[Mauricio Fernandez]

I want to write my core logics in a compiled language for 1) performance
and 2) protecting my source code -- in case I will be selling my product
to a customer.

What would be the most natural-supported-easy-fast language to do this
in, given the many choices of language bridges?

I am particularly interested in,

1) C
2) Objective C
3) Ocaml
4) Lisp (SBCL)
5) Scheme

[...]
There's rocaml:http://eigenclass.org/hiki/rocaml. Never used it,
but thought I'd mention it.

I've been using rocaml lately, and I like it. OCaml isn't Haskell, but
nobody's perfect! Seriously though, OCaml fits very well (imho) with the
style of ruby (Hindley-Milner type inference + structural typing is very =========================================================
similar to duck typing), and rocaml makes it easy to

======================

Yes! I wish more people knew this. If anything, it would make the periodic
static vs. dynamic typing threads less boring. I've often started to write
about this for eigenclass.org, but I'm dropping more and more posts as of late
(I must be around ~75% rejection rate or so, and worsening).

write extensions since it auto-generates all the glue code for you
(similar to SWIG). You basically write a .ml file as you normally
would, declare a few things about the interface, and rocaml does the
rest. Doesn't work on windows yet I don't think (OCaml does, just not
rocaml).

"Non-pure-Ruby" development on Windows is often difficult; even a plain old C
extension can be challenging. AFAIK, rocaml could in principle[1] work on
Win32, at least with the MinGW and cygwin builds of Ruby and OCaml (maybe with
the MSVC ones too, if the same compiler is used for both). So I believe that
rocaml should be usable on Win32 after some work in the Makefile generation
magic. I don't use Win32 myself so it will be up to some brave Win32 developer
to clear the path.

By the way,

I've been using rocaml lately, and I like it. OCaml isn't Haskell, but
nobody's perfect!

What do you miss when you're doing OCaml instead of Haskell (apart from the
syntax, I assume ? I sometimes ache for ad-hoc polymorphism; I'm looking
forward to the result of the attempt to bring type classes to OCaml.
How do you feel about the strict vs. non-strict semantics? One thing I love
about OCaml is that I can know what is happening under the hood and there are
no bad surprises (bad performance or unexpectedly high memory consumption).

[1] The inability of ocamlopt (up to 3.09.2 or so, 3.10.0 can on some
platforms) to generate PIC code is not a problem on win32, see [274896].
The next release of OCaml will feature dynamic loading of native code.

 

[tho_mica_l]

AFAIK, rocaml could in principle[1] work on

Win32, at least with the MinGW and cygwin builds of Ruby and OCaml

May I ask if somebody has succeeded in building rocaml on cygwin?

What do you miss when you're doing OCaml instead of Haskell

Eager vs lazy evaluation makes some difference, I'd suppose.

 

[Sharkie Landshark]

Since Haskell creates stubs for C, how difficult would it be to write a
Ruby Wrapper around it? Wouldn't that be a better solution in that case?

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

You can write your libs in Ruby/Python/Perl and use SWIG to convert this to
C or vice-versa.

I was not aware that SWIG could do this -- I thought the *called*
library had to be in C or C++ and the *calling* programs could be in any
supported "scripting" language.

 

[MonkeeSage]

I want to write my core logics in a compiled language for 1) performance
and 2) protecting my source code -- in case I will be selling my product
to a customer.
What would be the most natural-supported-easy-fast language to do this
in, given the many choices of language bridges?
I am particularly interested in,
1) C
2) Objective C
3) Ocaml
4) Lisp (SBCL)
5) Scheme [...]
There's rocaml:http://eigenclass.org/hiki/rocaml. Never used it,
but thought I'd mention it.

I've been using rocaml lately, and I like it. OCaml isn't Haskell, but
nobody's perfect! Seriously though, OCaml fits very well (imho) with the
style of ruby (Hindley-Milner type inference + structural typing is very

=========================================================> similar to duck typing), and rocaml makes it easy to

======================

Yes! I wish more people knew this. If anything, it would make the periodic
static vs. dynamic typing threads less boring. I've often started to write
about this for eigenclass.org, but I'm dropping more and more posts as of late
(I must be around ~75% rejection rate or so, and worsening).

Heh. Just don't let it get to 100%. I enjoy reading your blog.

write extensions since it auto-generates all the glue code for you
(similar to SWIG). You basically write a .ml file as you normally
would, declare a few things about the interface, and rocaml does the
rest. Doesn't work on windows yet I don't think (OCaml does, just not
rocaml).

"Non-pure-Ruby" development on Windows is often difficult; even a plain old C
extension can be challenging. AFAIK, rocaml could in principle[1] work on
Win32, at least with the MinGW and cygwin builds of Ruby and OCaml (maybe with
the MSVC ones too, if the same compiler is used for both). So I believe that
rocaml should be usable on Win32 after some work in the Makefile generation
magic. I don't use Win32 myself so it will be up to some brave Win32 developer
to clear the path.

By the way,

I've been using rocaml lately, and I like it. OCaml isn't Haskell, but
nobody's perfect!

What do you miss when you're doing OCaml instead of Haskell (apart from the
syntax, I assume ? I sometimes ache for ad-hoc polymorphism; I'm looking
forward to the result of the attempt to bring type classes to OCaml.
How do you feel about the strict vs. non-strict semantics? One thing I love
about OCaml is that I can know what is happening under the hood and there are
no bad surprises (bad performance or unexpectedly high memory consumption).

I was just being silly, since Haskell is "pure" (and "pure" ==
"greatest" because it separates functions and "actions". In
actuality, I like the fact that OCaml lets me use reference types and
imperative programming when I feel it best suites the problem.

I've only been using Haskell for about six months, and I've not delved
too deeply into theory (Curry-Howard isomorphism, existential types,
and so forth). So I can't really say on any technical level what I'd
be missing (if anything) by using OCaml rather than Haskell.

List comprehensions are nice, but not essential (there is a camlp4
module for list comps in OCaml [1], but I've not tried it). Syntax
isn't a big deal, and the "revised syntax" is pretty close to Haskell
(there is also Mike Lin's preprocessor [2] for using the off-side rule
rather than parens / begin...end for statement grouping). One big
difference is obviously type classes, but so far I've found generic
functions provide enough polymorphism for what I've been doing, and
haven't needed overloading. However, I do miss it for the overloaded
functions defined in the Prelude, which save from explicit type
conversions and and type-specific operators -- it's nice to be able to
say "10 / 2.0" and get "5.0" instead of "this has type float but is
used with type int".

I agree about laziness having fangs (and I almost always use the
strict Data.ByteString.Char8 for example), but over-all I like it for
the reasons given by SPJ [3] (my favorite of which is: "Laziness is
jolly convenient", heh). But (aside from implementation details) since
I can generate a thunk in OCaml with the lazy keyword and can build
the same kind of lazy data structures [4], strict vs. non-strict
semantics seems like a moot point. In Haskell you have to explicitly
tell a function to be strict, in OCaml you have to explicitly tell it
to be lazy. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

[1] http://www.univ-orleans.fr/lifo/Members/David.Teller/software/comprehension/
[2] http://people.csail.mit.edu/mikelin/ocaml+twt/
[3] http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/haskell-retrospective/
[4] http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/2007/01/01/ocaml-lazy-lists-an-introduction/

[1] The inability of ocamlopt (up to 3.09.2 or so, 3.10.0 can on some
platforms) to generate PIC code is not a problem on win32, see [274896].
The next release of OCaml will feature dynamic loading of native code.

Regards,
Jordan