Article on oreilly.net on how to build Unix tools with Ruby

[Gavin Sinclair]

Actually, I had thought of this quite some time ago. I picked the
project name "Runix" and played with a cute logo that (sort of)
spelled Runix in Norse runes.

The aim at the time was to implement a free set of Unix-like tools
for Windows (without the heavyweight solution of Cygwin).

There are other (lightweight) solutions anyway: mingw and unixtools.
I see no point in a Ruby project for this; it doesn't solve any
problems that I've seen come up on the list.

David Alan Black and I also discussed this as a possible codefest
activity, but dumped it in favor of scanf.

Finally I decided: It's an interesting and fun activity, but it's not
a high priority for me. I myself am rapidly moving away from Windows,
and it's not usually wise to invest in the past.

Gavin

 

[Gavin Sinclair]

Hal Fulton wrote: (re: runix)
.

Then think of it as an investment in the future. Just as you leave one
OS for another today, you may do the same in the future, even if going
from one flavor of *nix to another. I've run into assorted iratation
because different 'nix do not implement all utilities quite the same
way. Whether it be grep with slighly different switches, or some
version of ifconfig, or whatever, it's nice to have a known set of tools
that Do The Right Thing wherever they are.

The GNU utilities?

[...]

Gavin

 

[David Garamond]

There are other (lightweight) solutions anyway: mingw and unixtools.
I see no point in a Ruby project for this; it doesn't solve any
problems that I've seen come up on the list.

Of course the main reason for Perl Power Tools, Runix, rpt, etc. would
be only-for-fun hacking (or, in Perl lingo, "hubris"). After all, when
Ruby is available in a platform, wouldn't a C compiler be too?

Also, most of the Unix tools are already established and the
fast-to-prototype-and-change nature of Ruby wouldn't help much here.