Session SWIG for Mixed Language Development Phil Tomson, Portland State University Track: Apps Date: Wednesday, July 09 Time: 4:30pm - 5:15pm Location: Salon G There is generally an inverse relationship between speed of development and speed of execution. Code developed in C/C++ tends to execute much faster than code written in a 'scripting' language like Ruby, Perl or Python. However, in many instances it takes much less time to develop an application in Ruby, Perl or Python. Often a mixed language approach makes sense: Develop the parts of the application where execution speed is an issue in C/C++, and develop other parts of the application in a scripting language where speed of development is important. The scripting languages really shine when it comes to string manipulation (regex matching), file parsing, and rapid GUI development - areas where developing in C/C++ can be cumbersome. Swig (Simple Wrapper Interface Generator) is a great tool for mixed language development. In this talk I will focus on using Swig for mixed-language development and show a quick example where I take a C++ library, wrap it with Swig, and make its classes available within Ruby and (time permitting) Perl.

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