Re: [PATCH/RFC 0/7] Support for Ruby

[Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 4:29 PM, brian m. carlson
<sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 01:48:08PM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> It was discussed before that there was a need to replace Git scripts
>> from perl and sh that utilize the 'git' binary to do everything they
>> need, which requires many forks, and that creates problems on
>> platforms like Windows.
>>
>> This is a first step meant to show how a solution using Ruby would look like.
>>
>> Other alternatives just don't cut it. Shell scripts are too simple, and
>> invariably require forks. Perl could use Git's internal C code, but it's syntax
>> is too cumbersome and it's loosing more and more popularity. Python and Ruby
>> are the only modern languages that could fit all the needs, but Python's syntax
>> is not ideal, specially considering the background of the Git community, and
>> also, Ruby's C extensibility is simply superb.
>>
>> This patch series introduces Ruby bindings for Git's C internal library, and
>> add example commands to show how it could be used, and how it resembles the
>> original C code, shell code, and perl code. Basically, Ruby fits like a glove.
>
> A couple of things: first, I'm not opposed in principle to using Ruby
> for git.  As you say, it's a good language and it has much nicer C
> bindings.
>
> As Junio has also pointed out in the past, there are people who aren't
> able to use Ruby in the same way that they are Perl and Python.  If it's
> announced now, Git 2.0 might be a good time to start accepting Ruby
> scripts, as that will give people time to plan for its inclusion.

Yes, and there are people who aren't able to use Perl/Python in the
same way they use Ruby. That's why I tried to show why Ruby makes a
perfect choice.

> On a more technical note, my objection to your binding implementation is
> that fundamentally, Ruby is an object-oriented language, but your
> bindings don't take advantage of that; they're completely procedural.  I
> realize most of the git codebase is as well, but that's because it's
> written in C.  It seems a shame not to take advantage of what the
> language offers, especially since I know others are going to want to
> take advantage of the provided bindings.

For the moment the bindings are only for Git commands, so the primary
users are Git developers, that's why I tried to leave them close to
the current C/shell/perl code.

Having said that, it does use a little bit of object-oriented stuff:

  commit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1)
  p commit.buffer

Now, if anybody has ideas into how the bindings could be more object
oriented, I'm all ears, but unfortunately what I foresee is that
nobody will consider this proposal seriously.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras