# Going beyond Ruby: Writing a simple C extension

DevFeed: [Going beyond Ruby: Writing a simple C extension](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/going-beyond-ruby-writing-a-simple-c-extension-33529.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.aha.io/engineering/articles/ruby-c-extension>)

Published: 2025-12-09T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Aha! Engineering Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/aha-engineering-blog.md>)

Topics: [Ruby](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ruby.md>), [C](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/c.md>), [Compiler](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/compiler.md>)

Tags: [c](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/c.md>), [code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code.md>), [compiler](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/compiler.md>), [ruby](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ruby.md>)

## AI overview

A tutorial on writing Ruby C extensions to move performance-critical code into native C, use existing C libraries, and compare Ruby and C implementations with a quicksort example.

## Source excerpt

Ruby is a high-level language with elegant syntax. But sometimes, performance-critical tasks can be slow in pure Ruby. Writing a C extension lets us move performance-critical code into native C for speed while also tapping into existing C libraries.