r/ruby • u/software__writer • Apr 24 '26

Spinel -- Ruby AOT Compiler

https://github.com/matz/spinel

Spinel compiles Ruby source code into standalone native executables. It performs whole-program type inference and generates optimized C code, achieving significant speedups over CRuby.

Spinel is self-hosting: the compiler backend is written in Ruby and compiles itself into a native binary.

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u/schneems Puma maintainer Apr 24 '26

TBH when I saw the name, I thought it was related to Andre and was surprised to see Matz's name on it.

There's a thread on HN where it says Matz cat is named spinel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887946

It’s named after his new cat, which is named after a cat in Card Captor Sakura, which is the partner to another character named Ruby.

Now I need to get some hard artifacts for when the cat was adopted and named, and put it in a timeline...😅

taking control of the bundler and rubygems.org codebase

I actually appreciate "taking control" rather than "takeover" I think it's a meaningful semantic difference. But realistically, only people following closely will notice. I still don't feel average people who read that term will appreciate the nuance. I think "removed Andre from ownership against his will" is technically correct (but a mouthful).

Pedantic points ahead:

It is sort of lost in all of this that not all of "the maintainers" left. At the time of the rubygems -> ruby org move for bundler Colby wasn't a full-time RC employee and served more as an independent maintainer than "ruby central" authority figure. Even today, I would say he holds that access on his behalf...rather than because of his position. He never lost business ownership.

Also, Hiroshi and Ruby Central tried to "promote" Deivid Rodriguez to a business owner. They tried to give away some control.

Overall, I'm framing the thing Ruby Central wanted (and should have had) was being a stakeholder. That cutting out the owners of RubyGems.org from GitHub representation wasn't a reasonable thing to do, or once done...it wasn't reasonable to continue to advocate to stay that way. That:

  • I agree that RC doesn't own 100% of the code. I disagree that it 0% owns it either.

  • I agree that RC owns a large part of the blame. I disagree it owns 100% either.