[Ruby2c] ruby2c 1.0.0 beta 2 released

[Ryan Davis]

We've released ruby2c 1.0.0 beta 2!

RubyToC has the following modules:

	Rewriter      - massages the sexp into a more consistent form.
	TypeChecker   - type inferencer for the above sexps.
	RubyToC       - converts a ruby (subset) sexp to C.

and the following tools:

	translate.rb  - Translates a given file to C.

Understand what we mean by beta. It means we need eyes on it, it means 
it was ready enough to put out in the wild, but it also means that it 
isn't ready for any real use.

  What can it do?

  Well, currently it can pass all of its unit tests (325 tests with 512 
assertions) and it can translate nice simple static algorithmic code 
into C without much problem. For example:
  & cat x.rb
  class Something
  def blah; return 2+2; end
  def main; return blah; end
  end
  & ./translate.rb x.rb > x.c
  & gcc -I /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/powerpc-darwin x.c
  x.c: In function `main':
  x.c:17: warning: return type of `main' is not `int'
  & ./a.out
  & echo $?
  4

  What can it not do?

  More than it can.

  It can't (and won't) translate dynamic code. Period. That is simply 
not the intent.

  It probably can't translate a lot of static code that we simply 
haven't come across or anticipated yet. Our tests cover a fair amount, 
our validation runs cover a lot more than that, but it is still fairly 
idiomatic ruby and that puts us at being better at certain styles of 
coding and much worse at others.

  It is also simply rough around the edges. We've rounded out the rdoc 
but haven't done a thing for general documentation yet. These are on 
our list, and rather high on our priority list, but we just haven't had 
the time yet. For now, check out the rdoc and the PDF presentation that 
we've had up for a while.

  PLEASE: file bugs! We need feedback and we'd like to be able to track 
it. The ruby2c project is on rubyforge and I'm getting the trackers set 
up today as well.

CHANGES:

*** 1.0.0-beta2 / 2004-02-15

+ 1 minor enhancement
	+ Added post-condition while/until support and tests.
+ 4 bug fixes
	+ Fixed bug:1422: Escape newlines to prevent multi-line strings in C.
	+ Fixed bug:1429: Arrays of strings are not being properly.
	+ Fixed bug:1447/1448: Readme file's website and added ParseTree 
dependency.

--
ryand-ruby at zenspider.com - Seattle.rb - 
http://www.zenspider.com/seattle.rb
http://blog.zenspider.com/ - http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruby2c