Here are questions, comments, and concerns that frequently come up.
DragonRuby LLP is a partnership of four devs who came together with the goal of bringing the aesthetics and joy of Ruby, everywhere possible.
Under DragonRuby LLP, we offer a number of products (with more on the way):
- Game Toolkit (GTK): A 2D game engine that is compatible with modern gaming platforms. Home Page FAQ Page
- RubyMotion (RM): A compiler toolchain that allows you to build native, cross-platform mobile apps. Home Page FAQ Page
- Commandline Toolkit (CTK): A zero dependency, zero installation Ruby environment that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Home Page FAQ Page
All of the products above leverage a shared core called DragonRuby.
NOTE: From an official branding standpoint each one of the products is suffixed with "A DragonRuby LLP Product" tagline. Also, DragonRuby is one word, title cased.
NOTE: We leave the "A DragonRuby LLP Product" off of this one because that just sounds really weird.
NOTE: Devs who use DragonRuby are "Dragon Riders/Riders of Dragons". That's a bad ass identifier huh?
The response to this question requires a few subparts. First we need to clarify some terms. Specifically language specification vs runtime.
A runtime is an implementation of a langauge specification. When people say "Ruby," they are usually referring to "the Ruby 3.0+ language specification implemented via the CRuby/MRI Runtime."
But, there are many Ruby Runtimes: CRuby/MRI, JRuby, Truffle, Rubinius, Artichoke, and (last but certainly not least) DragonRuby.
DragonRuby's goal is to be compliant with the ISO/IEC 30170:2012 standard. It's syntax is Ruby 2.x compatible, but also contains semantic changes that help it natively interface with platform specific libraries.
The elevator pitch is:
DragonRuby is a Multilevel Cross-platform Runtime. The "multiple levels" within the runtime allows us to target platforms no other Ruby can target: PC, Mac, Linux, Raspberry Pi, WASM, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox, and Scadia.
There are complexities associated with targeting all the platforms we support. Because of this, the runtime had to be architected in such a way that new platforms could be easily added (which lead to us partitioning the runtime internally):
- Level 1 we leverage a good portion of mRuby.
- Level 2 consists of optimizations to mRuby we've made given that our target platforms are well known.
- Level 3 consists of portable C libraries and their Ruby C-Extensions.
Levels 1 through 3 are fairly commonplace in many runtime implemenations (with level 1 being the most portable, and level 3 being the fastest). But the DragonRuby Runtime has taken things a bit further:
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Level 4 consists of shared abstractions around hardware I/O and operating system resources. This level leverages open source and proprietary components within Simple DirectMedia Layer (a lowlevel multimedia component library that has been in active development for 22 years and counting).
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Level 5 is a codegeneration layer which creates metadata that allows for native interopability with host runtime libraries. It also includes OS specific message pump orchestrations.
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Level 6 is a Ahead of Time/Just in Time Ruby compiler built with LLVM. This compiler outputs very fast platform specific bitcode, but only supports a subset of the Ruby language specification.
These levels allow us to stay up to date with open source implementations of Ruby; provide fast, native code execution on proprietary platforms; ensure good seperation between these two worlds; and provides a means to add new platforms without going insane.
Cool cool. So given that I understand everything to this point, can we answer the original question? What is DragonRuby?
DragonRuby is a Ruby runtime implentation that takes all the lessons we've learned from MRI/CRuby, and merges it with the latest and greatest compiler and OSS technologies.
Let's check the official source for the answer to this question: isrubydead.com.
On a more serious note, Ruby's quantity levels aren't what they used to be. And that's totally fine. Every one chases the new and shiny.
What really matters is quality/maturity. Here is the latest (StackOverflow Survey sorted by highest paid developers)[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#top-paying-technologies].
That doesn't make any sense. A language specification can't be slow... it's a language spec. Sure, an implementation/runtime can be slow though, but then we'd have to talk about which runtime.
They are certainly slower than statically compiled languages. With the processing power and compiler optimizations we have today, dynamic languages like Ruby are fast enough.
Unless you are writing in some form of intermediate representation by hand, your langauge of choice also suffers this same fallacy of slow. Like, nothing is faster than a low level assembly-like language. So unless you're writing in that, let's stop making this comment.
NOTE: If you are hand writing LLVM IR, we are always open to bringing on new partners with such a skillset. Email us ^_^.
The current state of open source is unsustainable. Contributors work for free, most all open source repositories are serverly understaffed, and burnout from core members is rampant.
We believe in open source very strongly. Parts of DragonRuby are infact, open source. Just not all of it (for legal reasons, and because the IP we've created has value). And we promise that we are looking for (or creating) ways to sustainably open source everything we do.
If you have ideas on how we can do this, email us!
If you can afford to pay for DragonRuby, you should (and will). We don't go around telling writers that they should give us their books for free, and only require payment if we read the entire thing. It's time we stop asking that of software products.
That being said, we will never put someone out financially. We have income assistance for anyone that can't afford a license to any one of our products.
You qualify for a free, unrestricted license to DragonRuby products if any of the following items pertain to you:
- Your income is below $3,000.00 (USD) per month.
- You are under 18 years of age.
- You are a student of any type: traditional public school, home schooling, college, bootcamp, or online.
- You are a teacher, mentor, or parent who wants to teach a kid how to code.
- You work/worked in public service or at a charitable organization: for example public office, army, or any 501(c)(3) organization.
Just contact Amir at amir.rajan@dragonruby.org with a short explanation of your current situation and he'll set you up. No questions asked.
You can try our web-based sandbox environment. But it won't do the runtime justice. Or just come to our Slack or Discord channel and ask questions. We'd be happy to have a one on one video chat with you and show off all the cool stuff we're doing.
Seriously just buy it. Get a refund if you don't like it. We make it stupid easy to do so.
Free isn't a sustainable financial model. We don't want to spam your email. We don't want to collect usage data off of you either. We just want to provide quality toolchains to quality developers (as opposed to a large quantity of developers).
The people that pay for DragonRuby and make an effort to understand it are the ones we want to build a community around, partner with, and collaborate with. So having that small monetary wall deters entitled individuals that don't value the same things we do.
That won't happen if the development world stop asking for free stuff and non-trivially compensate open source developers. Look, we want to be able to work on the stuff we love, every day of our lives. And we'll go to great lengths to make that happen.
But, in the event that sad day comes, our partnershiop bylaws state that all DragonRuby IP that can be legally open sourced, will be released under a permissive license.