Microsoft linking Silverlight, Ruby on Rails

Microsoft plans to demonstrate integration between its new Silverlight browser plug-in and the Ruby on Rails Web framework this Friday. The integration will be done via a plug-in.

Microsoft officials will detail Ruby on Rails efforts at the RailsConf 2008 conference in Portland, Ore., which is taking place now through the weekend. The plug-in will be free to conference attendees.

 

Also at the event, Microsoft officials will demonstrate IronRuby, a version of the Ruby programming language for Microsoft's .Net platform, running a Ruby on Rails application.

"Running Rails shows that we are serious when we say that we are going to create a Ruby that runs real Ruby programs. And there isn't a more real Ruby program than Rails," said a blog entry on Friday from Microsoft's John Lam, a program manager in the dynamic language runtime team, who will present at the conference.

The company, though, still needs to improve performance on Rails, he said. Currently, too much memory is being consumed.

"IronRuby doesn't just let you run Rails; it lets you interact with the rich set of libraries provided by .Net," Lam said. "You'll be able to use IronRuby to build server-based applications that run on top of ASP.Net or ASP.Net MVC. You'll be able to use IronRuby to build client applications that run on top of Windows Presentation Foundation or Silverlight."