The essence of ruby

Katsuhiro Ueno; Yutaka Fukasawa; Akimasa Morihata; Atsushi Ohori

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-12736-1_5

The essence of ruby

Katsuhiro Ueno, Yutaka Fukasawa, Akimasa Morihata, Atsushi Ohori

Systems & Software Division

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented language with advanced features such as yield operator and dynamic class manipulation. They make Ruby a popular, highly productive scripting language, but they also make the semantics of Ruby complicated and difficult to understand. Even the JIS/ISO standard of Ruby seems to contain some ambiguities. For Ruby to be established as a reliable scripting language, it should have a rigorous semantics. To meet this challenge, we present a formal operational semantics that can serve as a high-level specification for both the users and implementers. The key insight underlying the semantics is that various elaborate features of Ruby can be cleanly represented as a composition of two orthogonal calculi: one for objects and classes and the other for representing control. The presented semantics leads straightforwardly to a reference implementation. Initial evaluation of our implementation confirms that the presented semantics conforms to commonly accepted Ruby behavior.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Programming Languages and Systems - 12th Asian Symposium, APLAS 2014, Proceedings
Editors	Jacques Garrigue
Publisher	Springer Verlag
Pages	78-98
Number of pages	21
ISBN (Electronic)	9783319127354
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12736-1_5
Publication status	Published - 2014
Event	12th Asian Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems, APLAS 2014 - Singapore, Singapore Duration: 2014 Nov 17 → 2014 Nov 19

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume	8858
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)	1611-3349

Other

Other	12th Asian Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems, APLAS 2014
Country/Territory	Singapore
City	Singapore
Period	14/11/17 → 14/11/19

Keywords

Dynamic language
Iterator
Operational semantics
Ruby

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Theoretical Computer Science
Computer Science(all)

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-319-12736-1_5

Cite this

Ueno, K., Fukasawa, Y., Morihata, A., & Ohori, A. (2014). The essence of ruby. In J. Garrigue (Ed.), Programming Languages and Systems - 12th Asian Symposium, APLAS 2014, Proceedings (pp. 78-98). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 8858). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12736-1_5

The essence of ruby. / Ueno, Katsuhiro; Fukasawa, Yutaka; Morihata, Akimasa et al.

Programming Languages and Systems - 12th Asian Symposium, APLAS 2014, Proceedings. ed. / Jacques Garrigue. Springer Verlag, 2014. p. 78-98 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 8858).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Ueno, K, Fukasawa, Y, Morihata, A & Ohori, A 2014, The essence of ruby. in J Garrigue (ed.), Programming Languages and Systems - 12th Asian Symposium, APLAS 2014, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 8858, Springer Verlag, pp. 78-98, 12th Asian Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems, APLAS 2014, Singapore, Singapore, 14/11/17. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12736-1_5

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The essence of ruby

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