# Some General Questions about Ruby **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 4, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121 "2007-04-04T21:50:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/1 "2007-04-04T21:50:06Z")
Hi ! I think i’ll soon begin to learn programming in ruby, as so many people find it ( and its buddy RoR ) awesome. I’m a beginner programmer ( Basic, PHP, Caml, and i’m currently reading some C/C++ tutorials ) Ruby is an interpreted language, if i’m not wrong, interpreted languages are slightly slower than compiled ones, so far i mainly coded web apps, but i may one day do some Desktop apps programming, and so : are Ruby programs much slower/nearly as fast/ … as a for example a C-compiled program ( i guess it depends a lot on the kind of software ) ?? About the possibilities of Ruby, i know Ruby is a generic language, and that we can program almost every software in Ruby, but _almost_ every for example, is it possible to develop a peripheral driver in Ruby ?? more generally to access the hardware ? to write a linux kernel module ?? ( i guess it is not possible to write a ruby OS kernel ) thank you ( i’m not a native english speaker, sorry if any mistakes ) ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/2 "2007-04-04T21:53:16Z")
Vinh C. wrote: > are Ruby programs much slower/nearly as fast/ … > as a for example a C-compiled program ( i guess it depends a lot on the > kind of software ) ?? Yes, Ruby is quite a bit slower than C. But depending on the program you’re writing, this may not make much/any difference to the end user. If there are certain parts of the program that are creating a major performance hit, you can always write those bits in C and then call your C module from Ruby. ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/3 "2007-04-04T22:15:07Z")
On 4/4/07, Vinh C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi ! > I think i’ll soon begin to learn programming in ruby, as so many people > find it ( and its buddy RoR ) awesome. > I’m a beginner programmer ( Basic, PHP, Caml, and i’m currently reading > some C/C++ tutorials ) Welcome, glad to have you. You may want to check out Chris P.'s online tutorial as well: [http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/](http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/) Ruby is an interpreted language, if i’m not wrong, interpreted languages > are slightly slower than compiled ones, > so far i mainly coded web apps, but i may one day do some Desktop apps > programming, and so : are Ruby programs much slower/nearly as fast/ … > as a for example a C-compiled program ( i guess it depends a lot on the > kind of software ) ?? Yes, Ruby is slower than C most/all of the time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do great things with Ruby. For example, there are desktop applications written in Ruby. Checkout FreeRIDE as an example of what can be done. [http://freeride.rubyforge.org/](http://freeride.rubyforge.org/) About the possibilities of Ruby, i know Ruby is a generic language, and > that we can program almost every software in Ruby, but _almost_ every > for example, is it possible to develop a peripheral driver in Ruby ?? > more generally to access the hardware ? to write a linux kernel module > ?? ( i guess it is not possible to write a ruby OS kernel ) You may want to check out Ruby USB. It is a Ruby library that wraps libusb. Michael Hewner presented a session on it at the MountainWest RubyConf (hope to have video released soon) where he connected to and communicated with USB devices. I believe the library he used is found here: [http://www.a-k-r.org/ruby-usb/](http://www.a-k-r.org/ruby-usb/) There may be more information about Ruby USB on his blog, but it has the word “fetish” in the domain so I can’t view it from work. :S [http://technofetish.net/buffaloblog/](http://technofetish.net/buffaloblog/) thank you ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 10:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/4 "2007-04-04T22:29:09Z")
Quick answers: much slower, but for Web apps and a lot of other interactive apps where input/output itself creates lots of delays and lots of waiting, you probably don’t care. It’s possible to do most or all of those things in Ruby – apart from the kernel module – but you don’t want to. One reason: an interpreted language to execute has to bring with it the whole interpreter, which makes it large. Second, which should probably be first, speed matters much more in things like peripheral drivers which lots of other programs use and thus can be chokepoints for the whole system. Ruby on Rails is slow even by the standards of Web applications. But it’s still well worth learning as it makes it much easier to develop – and more importantly to evolve – powerful applications. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/5 "2007-04-04T22:23:08Z")
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 04:50:25AM +0900, Vinh C. wrote: > Hi ! > I think i’ll soon begin to learn programming in ruby, as so many people > find it ( and its buddy RoR ) awesome. > I’m a beginner programmer ( Basic, PHP, Caml, and i’m currently reading > some C/C++ tutorials ) That’s a pretty good beginning – three languages plus some dabbling. > Ruby is an interpreted language, if i’m not wrong, interpreted languages > are slightly slower than compiled ones, > so far i mainly coded web apps, but i may one day do some Desktop apps > programming, and so : are Ruby programs much slower/nearly as fast/ … > as a for example a C-compiled program ( i guess it depends a lot on the > kind of software ) ?? Technically, it’s not the language that’s slower – it’s the implementation. It’s true that, all else being equal, intepreted code runs more slowly than code compiled to a binary executable, but whether it is interpreted or compiled depends on the implementation you’re using. For instance, Objective Caml (aka OCaml) allows you to execute code via an interpreter, to compile to bytecode and run in a VM, or to compile to an executable binary file native to the platform. Ruby, of course, is a rather more dynamic language than OCaml, and as such is not (thus far) really suitable to compilation. As such, it is executed via an interpreter, and it’s not a very fast interpreter. I’m mostly just being pedantic here, but I figured I may as well make the situation as crystal clear as is reasonable. In any case, Ruby can definitely be used for desktop application development. You just have to be sure you know where execution speed will impose an unacceptable bottleneck, and perhaps choose a different language in such circumstances. For instance, I don’t think I’d want to implement a Mathematica clone entirely in Ruby, but a light weight word processor or web browser should be fine. > About the possibilities of Ruby, i know Ruby is a generic language, and > that we can program almost every software in Ruby, but _almost_ every > for example, is it possible to develop a peripheral driver in Ruby ?? > more generally to access the hardware ? to write a linux kernel module > ?? ( i guess it is not possible to write a ruby OS kernel ) I’d recommend against writing hardware drivers in Ruby, generally speaking, though I imagine it’s possible. Writing an OS kernel might prove a bit more difficult, with the interpreter-only implementation(s) currently available. For that sort of thing, you probably want to stick to something like C, OCaml, or maybe even Haskell or compiled Lisp. Ruby (and even Perl) is a bit less practical for such purposes. ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 11:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/6 "2007-04-04T23:34:15Z")
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 05:22:00AM +0900, Chad P. wrote: > to something like C, OCaml, or maybe even Haskell or compiled Lisp. > Ruby (and even Perl) is a bit less practical for such purposes. Although there are specific places where userland programs are intended to hook into the kernel, and Ruby is fine for such things. For example, using ruby fusefs you can write your own filesystem in Ruby. [http://rubyforge.org/projects/fusefs/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/fusefs/) ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/7 "2007-04-04T23:29:30Z")
thanks ! @Chad P. when i said i was a beginner programmer i meant in the desktop softwares field ;), as so far i mainly coded in php, and maths algorithms with caml when i asked if it was possible to develop OS kernels/modules, i am aware that “i don’t want to”, as it would imply that the kernel includes the interpreter, that itself has a bunch of prerequisites but from a theorical point of view, is it possible ? ( can ruby deal with hardware access, memory management etc … ) I have another question, about the WxRuby toolkit, i never used a gui toolkit before, but i guess it works like that : \_ for a compiled program ( for example C/C++ ), the toolkit library, is either already installed on the end user computer, either it is “included” in the source code and compiled with it \_ but for an interpreted language, how does it work ??? do the end user have to install a specific wxwidgets library ? or does wxruby provide a file that we have to bundle with the .rb files ??? thanks again ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/8 "2007-04-05T16:29:19Z")
ok, thanks, i know that ruby is not aimed at developing kernel related programs, it was just to know if it was theorically possible bye ! ---
**Author:** ![chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chuckychuck](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chuckychuck)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-general-questions-about-ruby/91121/9 "2007-04-05T00:23:20Z")
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 06:29:43AM +0900, Brian C. wrote: > > currently available. For that sort of thing, you probably want to stick > > to something like C, OCaml, or maybe even Haskell or compiled Lisp. > > Ruby (and even Perl) is a bit less practical for such purposes. > > Although there are specific places where userland programs are intended to > hook into the kernel, and Ruby is fine for such things. For example, using > ruby fusefs you can write your own filesystem in Ruby. > [http://rubyforge.org/projects/fusefs/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/fusefs/) Agreed. I didn’t mean to suggest that you shouldn’t interact with the kernel with Ruby – just that it’s usually not the best language for interacting directly with hardware and writing low-level stuff like most Linux kernel modules (for instance).