# Making Ruby a standard browser side language **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 15, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838 "2008-04-15T15:25:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/1 "2008-04-15T15:25:23Z")
it looks like Prototype was made to mimic Ruby in Javascript, and people who use Prototype usually love it. I wonder if Ruby can be made into another browser side language and what can make that happen? If Firefox adds a Ruby interpreter to its browser and some killer websites come out with features only supported by Ruby-enabled browsers, maybe Microsoft and Apple will have incentive to make Ruby go into IE and Safari too? Apple probably already loves Ruby as they put Ruby on Tiger and then added Rails on Leopard. ---
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/2 "2008-04-15T18:22:11Z")
SpringFlowers AutumnMoon wrote: > it looks like Prototype was made to mimic Ruby in Javascript, and people > who use Prototype usually love it. I wonder if Ruby can be made into > another browser side language and what can make that happen? If Firefox > adds a Ruby interpreter to its browser and some killer websites come out > with features only supported by Ruby-enabled browsers, maybe Microsoft > and Apple will have incentive to make Ruby go into IE and Safari too? > Apple probably already loves Ruby as they put Ruby on Tiger and then > added Rails on Leopard. An interesting attempt to interpret ruby bytecodes (YARV) in javascript: [http://hotruby.accelart.jp](http://hotruby.accelart.jp) ---
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/3 "2008-04-15T16:21:09Z")
On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 9:25 AM, SpringFlowers AutumnMoon [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > it looks like Prototype was made to mimic Ruby in Javascript, and people > who use Prototype usually love it. I wonder if Ruby can be made into > another browser side language and what can make that happen? If Firefox > adds a Ruby interpreter to its browser and some killer websites come out > with features only supported by Ruby-enabled browsers, maybe Microsoft > and Apple will have incentive to make Ruby go into IE and Safari too? Microsoft is way ahead of Mozilla and Apple in that department. Silverlight allows web pages to be scripted with Ruby. But I don’t think it’s going to take off, any more than previous attempts to put VBScript, Python, TCL, etc. in the browser have succeeded. Browser makers have a hard enough time standardizing their rendering of [X]HTML, ECMAScript, and CSS without adding more languages for them to handle in subtly incompatible ways. – Avdi Home: [http://avdi.org](http://avdi.org) Developer Blog: [http://avdi.org/devblog/](http://avdi.org/devblog/) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/avdi](http://twitter.com/avdi) Journal: [http://avdi.livejournal.com](http://avdi.livejournal.com) ---
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 7:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/4 "2008-04-16T07:56:13Z")
Avdi G. wrote: > Microsoft is way ahead of Mozilla and Apple in that department. > Silverlight allows web pages to be scripted with Ruby. > > But I don’t think it’s going to take off, any more than previous > attempts to put VBScript, Python, TCL, etc. in the browser have > succeeded. Browser makers have a hard enough time standardizing their > rendering of [X]HTML, ECMAScript, and CSS without adding more > languages for them to handle in subtly incompatible ways. Firebird is working on “python script”, not officially, but I think this is a good start, later though. ---
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 8:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/5 "2008-04-16T08:00:19Z")
On Apr 15, 2008, at 7:25 AM, SpringFlowers AutumnMoon wrote: > added Rails on Leopard. > [Headius: Ruby for the Web? Check!](http://headius.blogspot.com/2006/11/ruby-for-web-check.html) a @ [http://codeforpeople.com/](http://codeforpeople.com/) ---
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/6 "2008-04-16T16:32:36Z")
On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Avdi G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Silverlight allows web pages to be scripted with Ruby. > > But I don’t think it’s going to take off, any more than previous > attempts to put VBScript, Python, TCL, etc. in the browser have > succeeded. Browser makers have a hard enough time standardizing their > rendering of [X]HTML, ECMAScript, and CSS without adding more > languages for them to handle in subtly incompatible ways. Quite agree with you and actually Javascript is not bad a language at all, although Prototype is a nice extension. It is not Javascript’s fault that applying it on web pages is not as easy as writing Ruby scripts in vim and running them. Now I still would use Ruby instead of Javascript (e.g. with Rhino) to implement a console application of course 😉 Javascript does not have the sexy syntax and block semantics that Ruby has but its object model is great (maybe better in some ways as Mixins, almost as Traits but there is of course no conflict handling when extending an objects prototype) and blocks can be simulated with anonymous functions, I believe that I am not the first to say this on this list: Javascript is unduly underrated as a language because of the niche it is used in. Somehow it even feels wrong to take this niche away from it. Cheers Robert – [http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/](http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/) * * * Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein ---
**Author:** ![winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@winterheat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/winterheat)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2008, 1:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/making-ruby-a-standard-browser-side-language/134838/7 "2008-04-17T13:42:25Z")
Avdi G. wrote: > Microsoft is way ahead of Mozilla and Apple in that department. > Silverlight allows web pages to be scripted with Ruby. so Silverlight is like a Flash program that can be written in many languages including Ruby? can it become popular, since Flash is not popular as a standalone app such as email program (gmail or yahoo mail) or bank’s website. they still just javascript and AJAX to do things.