# What's next? **URL:** \ **Category:** IronRuby\ **Created:** [May 11, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427 "2010-05-11T20:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/21 "2010-05-12T21:09:14Z")
Note that the DLR’s ScriptHost abilities allow you to redefine what the file system is, so instead of changing require, load, load\_assembly, and any other code that might touch files, you can just write a Platform Abstraction Layer. The Silverlight support uses this heavily to allow require ‘foo’ to look up foo in the XAP. JD ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/22 "2010-05-13T05:37:22Z")
Notepad++ or Vim depending on what I’m doing at that moment. –Alex ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/23 "2010-05-13T01:02:48Z")
I use Emacs :). I’m a rebel! ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/24 "2010-05-14T08:00:20Z")
Martin Smith wrote: > Hey Guys, > > Now that IronRuby 1.0 has shipped (congrats!!), what’s next on the > docket? 🙂 > I’m not trying to pressure you guys! Just excited about the future. > The feature i’d love to see most would be pre-compilation… > > Thanks for such a great product, > Martin 1. Speed up for performance (as fast as JRuby). 2. Pre-Compilation for easy transfering ruby components to .net (I like ActiveRecord!) 3. [Asp.Net](http://Asp.Net) MVC Ruby ext as an offical supports. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/25 "2010-05-14T08:55:51Z")
Regarding perf, do you have a particular scenario that we should speed up? Tomas ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/26 "2010-05-14T08:59:22Z")
Ray L. wrote: > 1. Speed up for performance (as fast as JRuby). According to the ruby-benchmark-suite and other startup performance benchmarks (Rails and such), we’re on par with JRuby performance. Are you using the MSI installer? If not, you’ll have to NGEN the binaries yourself, which increase performance significantly (ngen install DLLS+EXE); the MSI does this for you (as long as you haven’t unchecked the option). If you are NGEN-ing, then please let us know where you see a significant performance difference (as Tomas just said =P). > 1. Pre-Compilation for easy transfering ruby components to .net (I like > ActiveRecord!) I’d like some more clarification on what you need to be easier. Today you can use ActiveRecord from C# with something like this (not entirely accurate at all but you get the idea): // Host IronRuby var ruby = IronRuby.Ruby.CreateEngine(); var scope = ruby.CreateScope(); // Load ActiveRecord and a ActiveRecord Model ruby.RequireFile(“rubygems”, scope); ruby.Execute(“require ‘active\_record’”, scope); ruby.RequireFile(“posts”, scope); dynamic Post = ruby.Runtime.Globals.MyModel; // Call a very dynamic method =) var val = Post.find\_by\_title\_and\_published(“My Post”, true); Pre-compilation wouldn’t help with this, as any pre-compilation support wouldn’t generate actual CLI-compliant types … it would just take the IL that we generate at runtime and store it in a DLL. As I mentioned before, we’d only support producing actual CLI types through a clr-type feature, enabling of annotating your Ruby code, and you wouldn’t want to annotate all of ActiveRecord. =) > 1. [Asp.Net](http://Asp.Net) MVC Ruby ext as an offical supports. You want both MVC _AND_ Rails? Geesh =P The be very frank, we’ll need a lot of community help to make IronRuby.AspNetMvc integration really good, as we’re not web-framework experts. So, please contribute – just like Ivan has. =) I might spend more time on it for a talk here and there, but I’d really like the community to get much more involved, actually being a crucial force in building out parts of IronRuby. ~Jimmy ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/27 "2010-05-14T22:51:39Z")
I know that, technically, pre-compilation does not get you much in terms of functionality, but it gets us very far in terms of deployment and ability to use this professionally. It’s troubling to my employer if I have to tell him that the thousands of hours of work we put in, the customer can just open up and look at. Yes, even compiled code can be reverse engineered, but at least you are not handing it out on a silver platter. It would be great if we can do more about security of source, but since we can’t, this is the least we can ask for. I’m not going to argue about what it gets you, because I know there are not functional gains or any true security gains, but I just wanted to voice my opinion and say that I strongly favor it. thanks, Bassel Jimmy S. wrote: > Ray L. wrote: > > > 1. Speed up for performance (as fast as JRuby). > > According to the ruby-benchmark-suite and other startup performance > benchmarks (Rails and such), we’re on par with JRuby performance. Are > you using the MSI installer? If not, you’ll have to NGEN the binaries > yourself, which increase performance significantly (ngen install > DLLS+EXE); the MSI does this for you (as long as you haven’t unchecked > the option). If you are NGEN-ing, then please let us know where you see > a significant performance difference (as Tomas just said =P). > > > 1. Pre-Compilation for easy transfering ruby components to .net (I like > > ActiveRecord!) > > I’d like some more clarification on what you need to be easier. Today > you can use ActiveRecord from C# with something like this (not entirely > accurate at all but you get the idea): > > // Host IronRuby > var ruby = IronRuby.Ruby.CreateEngine(); > var scope = ruby.CreateScope(); > > // Load ActiveRecord and a ActiveRecord Model > ruby.RequireFile(“rubygems”, scope); > ruby.Execute(“require ‘active\_record’”, scope); > ruby.RequireFile(“posts”, scope); > dynamic Post = ruby.Runtime.Globals.MyModel; > > // Call a very dynamic method =) > var val = Post.find\_by\_title\_and\_published(“My Post”, true); > > Pre-compilation wouldn’t help with this, as any pre-compilation support > wouldn’t generate actual CLI-compliant types … it would just take the > IL that we generate at runtime and store it in a DLL. As I mentioned > before, we’d only support producing actual CLI types through a clr-type > feature, enabling of annotating your Ruby code, and you wouldn’t want to > annotate all of ActiveRecord. =) > > > 1. [Asp.Net](http://Asp.Net) MVC Ruby ext as an offical supports. > > You want both MVC _AND_ Rails? Geesh =P The be very frank, we’ll need a > lot of community help to make IronRuby.AspNetMvc integration really > good, as we’re not web-framework experts. So, please contribute – just > like Ivan has. =) I might spend more time on it for a talk here and > there, but I’d really like the community to get much more involved, > actually being a crucial force in building out parts of IronRuby. > > ~Jimmy ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/28 "2010-05-15T03:54:21Z")
Hi Tomas, So all of the dialogs in our application are built using IR. The first time any dialog is used there’s probably a second or two delay, then there’s probably a half second (or maybe a bit less) delay each time a new dialog is required for the first time. I’ve thought about doing all of this on a secondary thread at startup, but that would require “unwinding” our code a bit. Presumably we could just require all the dialog ruby code when we fire up the app. This would probably work and would potentially take a few seconds. Right now, our application is deployed via mono on the mac, so we’re using the .net 2.0 sp1 binaries and they’re just sitting there alongside our binaries. We’re still deciding about whether we’ll go with .NET 2.0 sp1 or .NET 4 for our next PC version and will use the IR binary for the framework version we decide on. I would say we’re not “requiring” (in the ruby sense of the word) anything too exotic, just a bunch of ruby files at runtime. We use a small subset of the standard library. Do you know what happens if I change the compilation threshold while running, btw? Seriously, i cant thank you guys enough for the great work you do. Martin On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Tomas M. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/29 "2010-05-15T06:45:49Z")
Well based on what you’re describing it sounds like Duby (or is it Mirah now?) might be a good fit. I’m getting ready to start putting some time into creating a .NET backend for Duby. It’ll be a ways off for you, but something to consider in the future. -Zac ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/30 "2010-05-15T17:10:59Z")
Maybe what you need is background compilation/preparation, which could reduce initial execution by going straight to JIT’d code without having to wait for compilation. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/31 "2010-05-15T19:29:43Z")
We do in fact compile hot code on background thread while interpreting it on main thread. Are IronRuby and DLR binaries NGEN’d (or whatever is ahead-of-time compilation called on Mono)? Could you try it on Windows with .NET4 to see if there is any difference? Compilation threshold is read-only. It’s only meant to be changed for debugging and benchmarking purposes. Not to make some app faster or slower. I can’t help much without seeing the exact code that you are running/requiring. Tomas From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Rodrigo Kumpera Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 8:05 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] What’s next? Maybe what you need is background compilation/preparation, which could reduce initial execution by going straight to JIT’d code without having to wait for compilation. On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 10:46 PM, Martin Smith \ wrote: Hi Tomas, So all of the dialogs in our application are built using IR. The first time any dialog is used there’s probably a second or two delay, then there’s probably a half second (or maybe a bit less) delay each time a new dialog is required for the first time. I’ve thought about doing all of this on a secondary thread at startup, but that would require “unwinding” our code a bit. Presumably we could just require all the dialog ruby code when we fire up the app. This would probably work and would potentially take a few seconds. Right now, our application is deployed via mono on the mac, so we’re using the .net 2.0 sp1 binaries and they’re just sitting there alongside our binaries. We’re still deciding about whether we’ll go with .NET 2.0 sp1 or .NET 4 for our next PC version and will use the IR binary for the framework version we decide on. I would say we’re not “requiring” (in the ruby sense of the word) anything too exotic, just a bunch of ruby files at runtime. We use a small subset of the standard library. Do you know what happens if I change the compilation threshold while running, btw? Seriously, i cant thank you guys enough for the great work you do. Martin On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Tomas M. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/32 "2010-05-16T00:53:58Z")
On 15/05/2010, at 8:51 AM, Bassel Samman wrote: > Yes, even compiled code can be > reverse engineered, but at least you are not handing it out on a silver > platter. Ummm… Yes you are. Have you seen reflector? Unless you’re writing all your code in C++, you’re pretty much shipping the source. Every ignorant manager seems to have this attitude that just because someone can see the source somehow means that you’ll lose your intellectual property or your program will get hacked. This is blatantly false - how many years have we all been using open source software!!?!? yet the opinion still keeps hanging around like a bad smell. Sorry 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/33 "2010-05-25T13:15:37Z")
In terms of MRI compatibility, I’d suggest that 1.9.2 would be a good target. 1.9.1 has various issues and has been largely ignored in favour of 1.8.7, but I’m seeing a lot of people recommending 1.9.2 even in its current pre state. Beyond compatibility, I think VS integration would be sweet, and would help drive adoption among my vi-illiterate colleagues. If my sum workload ever drops below critical mass, I’ll start to contribute: honest! Mark On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:24 AM, Jimmy S. \< ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/34 "2010-05-15T21:11:34Z")
For me personally performance isn’t a show stopper. I know I’m working with dynamic language and am willing to pay the lookup tax in exchange for much faster turn-around on applications and libraries. What is a show stopper for me (and is in fact one of the biggest the reasons I’m now using jruby/MRI for our applications instead of ironruby) is the fact that OpenSSL doesn’t work completely and that \*nix isn’t supported properly at all, as I tend to favor certificate based auth for internal apps. While I’m very much willing to do some work to make that happen I’m currently mostly interested in meeting my own cut-throat deadlines. So instead of performance my vote definitely goes to much better library support (in particular openssl) and better \*nix support. also the proposed ir -S gem doesn’t work properly on a buch of OS’es. ## Those are things I’d like to see fixed + ruby 1.9 support. Met vriendelijke groeten - Best regards - Salutations Ivan Porto C. Web: [http://whiterabbitconsulting.eu](http://whiterabbitconsulting.eu) - [http://flanders.co.nz](http://flanders.co.nz) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/casualjim](http://twitter.com/casualjim) Author of IronRuby in Action ([IronRuby in Action - Ivan Porto Carrero and Adam Burmister | Manning](http://manning.com/carrero)) Microsoft IronRuby/C# MVP On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 7:19 PM, Tomas M. \< ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/35 "2010-05-25T21:26:14Z")
+1 except for targeting 1.8.7. The Ruby community as a whole is really pushing to get off of 1.8, so the faster IronRuby gets there, the better. Ryan ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/36 "2010-06-03T23:01:45Z")
Hey Stuart, Try out rubymine. We use that and it works pretty well even with IronRuby… Martin ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/37 "2010-05-25T21:29:10Z")
> From the peanut gallery: the lack of VS integration has definitely held me back from trying to push IronRuby in any capacity at work - I’ve been happy using Ruby without an IDE, but I am fairly certain that my colleagues would politely and firmly decline any suggestion of switching to text editor and the CLI. You could take that as a complement to the work of the VS team 🙂 On 25 May 2010, at 12:15, Mark Rendle wrote: > Any other features people are curious about? Now is definitely the time to voice your opinions 🙂 > > > Will G. > > On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Tomas M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > To: [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > Tomas > > Now that IronRuby 1.0 has shipped (congrats!!), what’s next on the docket? 🙂 I’m not trying to pressure you guys! Just excited about the future. > > Ironruby-core mailing list > > * * * > > Ironruby-core mailing list > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > [http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core](http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core) * * * Stuart E. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 9:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/38 "2010-06-04T09:03:25Z")
Interesting - I tried SharpDevelop and Netbeans, and wasn’t happy with them for different reasons, but not RubyMine. Thanks On 3 Jun 2010, at 21:49, Martin Smith wrote: > > > Any other features people are curious about? Now is definitely the time to voice your opinions 🙂 > > > > > > > Will G. > > > > On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Tomas M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > To: [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > > > Tomas > > > > Now that IronRuby 1.0 has shipped (congrats!!), what’s next on the docket? 🙂 I’m not trying to pressure you guys! Just excited about the future. > > > > Ironruby-core mailing list > > [http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core](http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core) * * * Stuart E. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 9:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/39 "2010-06-04T09:10:26Z")
I’m using RubyMine for rails and projects with more than 2-3 files. Otherwise I’m using SciTE. By the way, RubyMine is not free. ## Shay. Shay F. | Microsoft Visual C#/IronRuby MVP | Author of IronRuby Unleashed | Sela Technology Center Blog: [http://IronShay.com](http://IronShay.com) | Twitter: [http://twitter.com/ironshay](http://twitter.com/ironshay) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Martin\_Smith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Martin_Smith)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427/40 "2010-06-04T18:02:37Z")
+1 for rubymine. On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:08 AM, Shay F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > > > Hey Stuart, > > > been happy using Ruby without an IDE, but I am fairly certain that my > > > > > > > > Will, what you are describing is the preferred way of packaging Ruby > > > > > As far as the other discussed features go, let me draw a line in the > > > > > for Ruby; as in we will not emit both similar types and method bodies as C#. > > > > > As far as non-.NET related features, we’ll be targeting Ruby 1.9 > > > > > On May 11, 2010, at 7:15 PM, “Will G.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > > > > > > > > > > Will G. > > > > > > in a static language or for unit testing purposes? > > > > > > Well, there is a pretty simple way how to package up .rb files into > > > > > > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of David Escobar > > > > > > statically from C#, then all the better. > > > > > > > > > > > > Now that IronRuby 1.0 has shipped (congrats!!), what’s next on the > > > > > > > > > > > > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > > > > > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > > > > > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > > > > > Ironruby-core mailing list > > > > * * * – “The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.” - Occam’s Razor [Occam's razor - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor) [Previous page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-next/188427.md?page=1)