O'Reilly Open Source Convention - August 1-5, 2005

Session
Metaprogramming Ruby
Glenn Vanderburg, Independent Consultant

Track: Ruby
Date: Thursday, August 4th, 2005
Time: 2:35pm - 3:20pm
Location: E143-144
In recent years, Ruby programmers have been discovering that their language supports a wonderful style of programming: extending Ruby itself until it becomes a domain-specific language--but one built upon and within Ruby, so that all its general-purpose power is still available. You can see this style of programming in Rails, Rake, Semitar, and other Ruby libraries, frameworks, and tools.
Ruby is greater than the sum of its parts. What makes Ruby an excellent host language for DSLs is the combination of several features and characteristics: blocks, deep reflection, open classes and instances, executable declarations, a neutral syntax, and more. In this talk, we'll look at examples of DSLs embedded within Ruby, and explore some techniques for implementing them.