# Cardinal: Not dead yet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [August 15, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cardinal-not-dead-yet/102405 "2006-08-15T14:16:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/James_FSHranicky)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cardinal-not-dead-yet/102405/1 "2006-08-15T14:16:49Z")
Didn’t know this: ``` http://www.parrotcode.org/news/2006/Parrot-0.4.6.html ``` ---
**Author:** ![James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/James_FSHranicky)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cardinal-not-dead-yet/102405/2 "2006-08-15T14:17:21Z")
In article [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid), James F. Hranicky [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Didn’t know this: > > [http://www.parrotcode.org/news/2006/Parrot-0.4.6.html](http://www.parrotcode.org/news/2006/Parrot-0.4.6.html) Several years ago (was it '02?) when I first proposed Cardinal and opened up a project, it became apparent that Parrot was very much a moving target and thus it seemed like it could be a waste of time to put much effort into Cardinal. A couple of years ago it was reborn for a time due to the efforts of Mark Sparshatt. But even then Parrot still proved to be too much of a moving target so not much happened (you can see the fruits of that effort here: [http://rubyforge.org/projects/cardinal/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/cardinal/) ). More recently the Parrot folks have come up with lots of nice tools to help you write a front end and integrate it with Parrot. I hadn’t kept up with recent Parrot developments so I wasn’t aware of these tools. Kevin T. contacted me and asked if he could use the ‘Cardinal’ name and I told him that would be fine. So hopefully this time we’ll actually see Cardinal become something useful. Phil ---
**Author:** ![James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/James_FSHranicky)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cardinal-not-dead-yet/102405/3 "2006-08-15T14:17:32Z")
James F. Hranicky wrote: > Didn’t know this: > > [http://www.parrotcode.org/news/2006/Parrot-0.4.6.html](http://www.parrotcode.org/news/2006/Parrot-0.4.6.html) It’s not dead, it’s just pining for the inodes. Actually I’m more interested in Ruby on .NET these days… but more power to anyone who wants to put Ruby on a VM. And I guess Parrot will be good for interop between Perl, Python, and Ruby. Hal ---
**Author:** ![James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/James_FSHranicky)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cardinal-not-dead-yet/102405/4 "2006-08-15T14:17:44Z")
Hal F. wrote: > And I guess Parrot will be good for interop between > Perl, Python, and Ruby. > > Hal Wait a minute – the whole _point_ is that the parrot is dead, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e79b87/32.png) [@James\_FSHranicky](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/James_FSHranicky)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cardinal-not-dead-yet/102405/5 "2006-08-15T14:17:39Z")
Interop between different dynamic languages was one thing that we spent some time talking about at the recent Ruby + .NET summit (Wilco Bauwer of IronRuby, myself, and John Gough of [Ruby.NET](http://Ruby.NET)) along with Jim Hugunin of IronPython and Paul Vick of VB. While there are lots of nasty corner cases in doing interop with a statically typed VM like the CLR, I think there are even more nasty corner cases in doing interop across dynamic languages. One thing that we would really like to come up with is some kind of a spec along the lines of the CLS (Common Language Specification) for statically typed languages. That is, if you want interop across dynamic language libraries (e.g. consuming Python code in Ruby) that there is a certain minimum set of features that your libraries will use _and restrict themselves to using_ if they want to play nicely with others. But one thing at a time - I think that it’s important to get interop with the static libraries working well to start with. And with features like generics, it just makes my life a living hell 🙂 -John > **[John Lam's Blog](https://www.iunknown.com/)** > > Since 1997