Way down the road, it would be nice to be able to build ASP.NET MVC applications using a DLR language such as IronRuby. However, enabling DLR language support isn’t free.

There are going to be places in our design that are specific to statically typed languages (such as Attribute based filters) that just wouldn’t work (or would be too unnatural) with a dynamic language.

Ideally we can minimize those cases, and for the ones we can’t, we need to make sure the extensibility of the framework allows for extending the system in such a way that we can provide a DLR friendly version of that feature.

How do we identify and minimize such hot spots? Design reviews help, but only goes so far. There is nothing like executing code to highlight issues. So in collaboration with some of the DLR team members, I’ve been exploring the minispec framework used to test IronRuby and wrote my first testspec tonight. Check it out. (NOTE: line breaks added in the require statements so it fits within the width of my blog)

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../spec_helper'
require 'System.Web.Abstractions
, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
require 'System.Web.Routing
, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
require 'System.Web.Mvc
, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'

describe "Route#<<" do
 
  it "can create RouteCollection which is empty" do
    rc = System::Web::Routing::RouteCollection.new
    rc.count.should == 0
  end
  
  it "can add route to RouteCollection" do
    rc = System::Web::Routing::RouteCollection.new
    r = System::Web::Routing::Route.new "", nil
    rc.add "route-name", r
    
    rc.count.should == 1
  end

end

And here is the result so far.

Administrator CWindowsSystem32cmd.exe

Yay! Two passing tests.

Yeah, the tests are really really simple so far, but hey, this is just my first step. I need to get familiar with the minispec framework. Not only that, but I haven’t written any Ruby code in a long while. Fortunately I do have a copy of The Ruby Way on my shelf, which should help.

I probably have much higher priority items on my plate that I could be working on, but sometimes you have to treat yourself to a little fun. Besides, I am doing this on my own time right now. :)