Article:		Ruby's Present and Future
Subject:		Speed
Date:		2003-12-21 11:55:03
From:		anonymous2
Ruby needs to be faster. I know it is great to program with (from what I have read) but speed wise seriously lags behind Perl and Python. The Windows port is not up to functionality with either of the two "P" scripting languages.

Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

• Speed
  2003-12-23 17:07:02  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  you're right about speed, but I'm not sure about features on windows.
  IO on win sucked with 1.6 but with 1.8 it works fine.
  More, Ruby has access to win32api, easy COM/OLE control, WSH via ActiveRuby, interesting stuff like win32utils (eventlog,service,clipboard), vruby (native windows gui), Delphi bindings..
  
  But, if you just tried it on windows and didn't liked it please exlain, If there is a itch maybe we should scratch it :)
  
  

• Speed
  2003-12-21 12:24:36  MikeStok [View]
  
  
  Is there a particular application which you need speeding up? Several people who have made this type of comment haven't timed a "real" application - Jim Freeze's powerpoint presentation has some interesting slides (11, 12, and 13) where Ruby was faster than perl on a real task.
  
  I'm not saying that RUby shouldn't be made speedier or better on Windows, just that I'd like to be pragmatic about it.
• Speed
  2003-12-22 05:19:41  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  It is more than "several" people. Matz, himself, has said it needs to be faster. Rite should do that but until then it still lags behind the "P" languages.
• Speed
  2003-12-23 16:53:32  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  ruby is slower than python and perl. Not so much in latest versions, if you use it with some intelligence.
  For example, even if you look at Doug's shootout you'll se stuff like this:
  ary=Array.new
  z=0
  for i in ary
  i=z+=1
  end
  
  while you could just initialize the array with this stuff with Array.new {auto inc block}.
  
  BTW, I don't really care about ruby slowness, or python's for that matter. They are "fast enough" for my needs, and the C api are just a charm if I need extension. Not that this should fit for your needs, anyway..
• Presentation URL
  2003-12-21 13:37:19  MikeStok [View]
  
  
  Sorry, cut and paste error on my part. Jim's presentation is at http://www.zenspider.com/dl/rubyconf2003/corpintro_pub.ppt