HotRuby: Run Ruby on a JavaScript interpreter?

Category: JavaScript , Library , Ruby , Showcase

<p>This is from the "wow, really?" department. HotRuby is an implementation of Ruby in JavaScript!

The way it works is that a HotRuby "VM" takes the resulting output from YARV and can grok it via JSON:

PLAIN TEXT

RUBY:

VM::InstructionSequence.compile(cgi['src'], "src", 1, OutputCompileOption).to_a.to_json

Thus, you can embed Ruby by doing something like this:

PLAIN TEXT

HTML:

<script type="text/ruby">
class Pi
def initialize
@a = 355.0
end
def calc
b = 113.0
return @a / b
end
PI = 'PI is about'
end
puts Pi::PI
puts Pi.new.calc
</script>
<body onload="prettyPrint(); new HotRuby().runFromScriptTag('/compileRuby.cgi')">

Since you can run on any JavaScript interpreter or VM, they also support Flash.

For example, check out this Box2D example written in Ruby, running in Flash:

3 Comments »

Comments feed TrackBack URI

I hadn’t seen this… that is a definite “wow really” moment for me. …wasn’t expecting this until Screaming Monkey… thanks, Dion.
Comment by Mark Holton — March 27, 2008: Ultra cool. Kudos!
Comment by JeanHuguesRobert — March 27, 2008: Yes this is pretty cool…but also complete insanity. Why, exactly, would anyone actually want to do this?
Comment by saw — March 29, 2008

Ajax Questions and Answers

Caching and dynamic views
My client does not want to change his cache settings on IE and I'm trying to figure out a way to dynamically update a view each time it is visited. I...

JQuery Function Not Defined?

Hi there,

I'm trying to set a php session variable from a radio button. The idea is that a jquery function is called which...

IE 8 Crashing Problem
Hello Everyone, Here\'s the situation: two iSeries boxes - Dev and Prod both V5R4M0 We\'re using AJAX to dynamically load content using a tabbed...