...this takes long!
I started the work on String::Ruby on the 8th of August. And I am still not done. About 80% of the methods are implemented, 60% of the PODs and not a single test yet. :-/
On the other hand, I re-implement the whole String class in C (except where I can't...those things involving regexes), so I shouldn't wonder.
In between my work I decided that it's silly to require autobox.pm, or even a recent perl. So I added a functional interface as well (all method names became ucfirst()ed to avoid clashes with Perl built-ins) and back-ported it to at least 5.00503. The back-porting was tricky since pre5.8.0 perls have a pretty limited XS-interface (for instance, hardly any numeric conversion routines) so I added those to my module and to Devel::PPPort along with the patch for the porters.
Once I am done I can be pretty happy. I expect this module to be one of my better ones. The tricky methods are done and work without segfaults, memory-leaks or other nastynesses.
Anyway, now I am exhausted. I spent the last three hours working on the module...time for a break and for enjoying a sunny Saturday morning.
