How can a language be interpreted by itself (like Rubinius)?

Posted by japancheese on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by japancheese
Published on 2010-05-30T06:01:04Z Indexed on 2010/05/30 6:02 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 210

Filed under:

ruby

|

compiler

|

language-design

|

rubinius

|

self-interpreter

I've been programming in Ruby for a while now with just the standard MRI implementation of Ruby, but I've always been curious about the other implementations I hear so much about.

I was reading about Rubinius the other day, a Ruby interpreter written in Ruby. I tried looking it up in various places, but I was having a hard time figuring out exactly how something like this works. I've never had much experience in compilers or language writing but I'm really interested to figure it out.

How exactly can a language be interpreted by itself? Is there a basic step in compiling that I don't understand where this makes sense? Can someone explain this to me like I'm an idiot (because that wouldn't be too far off base anyways)

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about ruby

Setting up Rails to work with sqlserver

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Ok I followed the steps for setting up ruby and rails on my Vista machine and I am having a problem connecting to the database. Contents of database.yml development: adapter: sqlserver database: APPS_SETUP Host: WindowsVT06\SQLEXPRESS Username: se Password: paswd Run rake db:migrate… >>> More
marshal data too short!!!

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My application requires to keep large data objects in session. There are like 3-4 data objects each created by parsing a csv containing 150 X 20 cells having strings of 3-4 characters. My application shows this error- "marshal data too short". I tried this- Deleting the old session table. Deleting… >>> More
Sinatra and XML POST request

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I don't know is it my mistake or no. So i have that code: <code> post '/singin/get_token' do content_type :xml puts request.body.read puts xmlRequest xmlRequest = REXML::Document.new(request.body.read) ... </code> And when i post something like that: <code> <?xml… >>> More
how to change ruby path from /usr/bin/ruby to /usr/local/bin/ruby

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
reading around the various ruby install tutorials it's required to change path from /usr/bin/ruby to /usr/local/bin/ruby but i cant seem to be able to do it. Ultimately i want to install Ruby 1.9.2, should i uninstall 1.8.7 or what? i tried to install Ruby 1.9.2 with macports, the installation seemed… >>> More
strange bundler error: tar_input.rb:49:in `initialize': not in gzip format (Zlib::GzipFile::Error) o

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
i am getting a strange bundler error when running bundle pack with bundler 0.9.12 any ideas? (see pastie for a better formatted code: http://pastie.org/881328 ) /opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/package/tar_input.rb:49:in `initialize': not in gzip format (Zlib::GzipFile::Error) … >>> More

Related posts about compiler

IDEA modular problem (jsp)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have project in with 2 separate modules(frontend and backend, first depends on second). When I'm trying to access backend code from frontend code, things going fine. Things turn for the worse when I do the same from jsp. This is stacktrase for simple accessign bean <jsp:useBean id="mybean"… >>> More
Help with a compiler warning: Initialization from distinct Objective-C type when types match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Here is the function where I get the compiler warning, I can't seem to figure out what is causing it. Any help is appreciated. -(void)displaySelector{ //warning on the following line: InstanceSelectorViewController *controller = [[InstanceSelectorViewController alloc] initWithCreator:self]; … >>> More
Sometimes Java web app hang

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The web app occasionally get hang for about 30 seconds when user request a web page, the server's CPU and memory usage are ok, and the jstack shows: "http-9999-3" daemon prio=6 tid=0x552f3400 nid=0xf40 runnable [0x578fc000] java.lang.Thread.State: RUNNABLE at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.compiler… >>> More
Need help regarding one LALR(1) parsing.

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am trying to parse a context-free language, called Context Free Art. I have created its parser in Javascript using a YACC-like JS LALR(1) parser generator JSCC. Take the example of following CFA (Context Free Art) code. This code is a valid CFA. startshape A rule A { CIRCLE { s 1} } Notice the… >>> More
Port Compiler Options (8 replies)

as seen on .NET 247 - Search for '.NET 247'
I currently own a license for Crossworks for ARM and would like to compile the port using it. With the code for the CLR now available, is it possible to compile the port with any ARM compiler or are we still restricted to the Keil ARM gcc compilers? >>> More