How can I learn Mirah? [closed]

Question

With Mirah, I am refering to the JVM language: http://www.mirah.org/

The only useful documentation available online are the examples. I understand it says it has a ruby-like syntax, but I do believe there are Mirah-specific quirks to it.

How would I go on identifying the various syntax quirks? Will learning Ruby itself suffice in learning Mirah?

Thanks!

Oysterman

Answer 1

If you know Java pretty well, you can start off by thinking of Mirah as Java with some funny syntax and type inference. You don't need to know Ruby's semantics to use Mirah, because Mirah uses Java's semantics for the most part.

There aren't really any tutorials about learning the language yet because the language is still changing and evolving.

Once you start trying to look at Mirah's internals, you'll want to beef up on your Ruby though, because most of Mirah is currently implemented in Ruby, JRuby in particular. If you have any questions about JRuby, the #jruby IRC channel has helpful people in it-- #mirah works too, but there are fewer regulars at the moment.

Leandra

Answer 2

No, I don't think that learning Ruby will be sufficient for learning Mirah, although it would probably be sufficient to get started. As I understand it, the syntax is fairly similar but isn't identical - Mirah has optional type annotations and doesn't allow metaprogramming. Still, they're probably sufficiently similar that it would help.

However, the best way to learn any language is just to try something in it - write a little app, and learn as you go.

Honebein

Not going to downvote, but the front page of the Mirah website explicitly says that it DOES support metaprogramming: mirah.org – Sestos