Microsoft brings Ruby to the browser?

Ruby
1

Via TechCrunch:

“Silverlight will now include a mini-CLR (Common Language Runtime)
from .NET. As with the usual .NET runtime, with Silverlight you can
code in a number of supported programming languages. At this time the
languages supported are C#, Javascript (ECMA 3.0), VB, Python and
Ruby. The Python and Ruby interpreters were built by Microsoft and
have been released under their shared source license meaning that
developers can get access to the code and are able to make
contributions to it.”

Has anybody played around with this yet, or know what subset of Ruby
will be supported?

2

There is more meat to this now that MIX07 has concluded.

There will be the Dynamic Language Runtime which extends the CLR.

From Miguel De Icaza (http://tirania.org/blog/)
Binaries of the DLR were released as part of Silverlight 1.1, and the
source code was included with IronPython 2.0 (also released today).

The release for the DLR is done under the terms of the Microsoft
Permissive License (MsPL) which is by all means an open source
license. This means that we can use and distribute the DLR as part of
Mono without having to build it from scratch. A brilliant move by
Microsoft.

During the keynote they announced support for four dynamic languages
built on top of the DLR: Python, JavaScript (ECMAScript 3.0), Visual
Basic and Ruby.

The real details can be found at: Jim Hugunin’s Thinking Dynamic -

This looks like something to watch.

3

[email protected] wrote:

license. This means that we can use and distribute the DLR as part of
Mono without having to build it from scratch. A brilliant move by
Microsoft.

Can someone confirm (or not) that this means one can write Ruby code,
compile it to DLR, and run it on Mono?

I.e., I can write and deploy Ruby.net code all on my Linux boxen?

That would be super bad.

–
James B.

“I can see them saying something like ‘OMG Three Wizards Awesome’”

4

“James B.” [email protected] wrote in message
news:[email protected]…

Can someone confirm (or not) that this means one can write Ruby code,
compile it to DLR, and run it on Mono?

I.e., I can write and deploy Ruby.net code all on my Linux boxen?

So far I have only heard MS people talk about Windows and the Mac. I
believe, in principle, deployment on any platform should be possible but
it
is my understanding that it is up to the developers of browsers
specifically
to add the necessary support. There should be a few more technical
details
released by MS during the next few days so this may become clearer then.

best wishes
Huw C.

http://www.sapphiresteel.com
Ruby P.ming In Visual Studio 2005

5

About 5/6 of the way through this demonstration (using a Safari
browser),
Ruby is shown running directly in the browser alongside Python, Jscript
and Visual Basic. They are being used to manipulate a XAML canvas.

The downloadable alpha 1.1 version of this “DLRConsole” at
(http://silverlight.net/community/communitygallery.aspx)
has only Python and Jscript however. Ruby will be released “later”.

Many more details are in this interesting talk between John Udell
and John L… http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=304541

The Adobe guys aren’t too impressed. Ted Patrick (Flex Evangelist) says
“The shroud of the dark side has fallen, begun the clone war has.” -
Yoda
http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/04/m-silverlight-vs-adobe-flash-player.php

How complete is it? Time will tell.

– Mike B.

6

Mike B. wrote:

About 5/6 of the way through this demonstration (using a Safari
browser),
Ruby is shown running directly in the browser alongside Python, Jscript
and Visual Basic. They are being used to manipulate a XAML canvas.

Missed the video link.
http://silverlight.net/learn/learnvideo.aspx?video=74

7

On 5/1/07, James B. [email protected] wrote:

The release for the DLR is done under the terms of the Microsoft
Permissive License (MsPL) which is by all means an open source
license. This means that we can use and distribute the DLR as part of
Mono without having to build it from scratch. A brilliant move by
Microsoft.

Can someone confirm (or not) that this means one can write Ruby code,
compile it to DLR, and run it on Mono?

Yes, when IronRuby is released it should run just fine on Mono, just as
IronPython runs today. Miguel’s latest blog entry states that he is
planning on using Microsoft’s DLR code directly in Mono. They can do
that
because of the license Microsoft is using for IronPython, IronRuby, and
the
DLR.

In fact, it looks like Mono may be implementing the Linux version of the
Silverlight plug-in using the Mono code-base.

I.e., I can write and deploy Ruby.net code all on my Linux boxen?