[MacRuby-devel] 0.2 available for testing

[Laurent Sansonetti]

Hi Stephen,

On Jun 5, 2008, at 10:40 AM, Stephen Bannasch wrote:

> I've just started playing with MacRuby.
>
> Updated to the latest testing release and installed the normal way as
> /usr/local/bin/macruby (instead of trying to install in a non-system
> dir).
>
> Copied /Developer/Examples/Ruby/MacRuby to a working folder and ran
> all the demos.
>
> Everything worked except for CircleView. Interacting with the UI
> caused the app to exit with status 1.
>
> I'm not very familiar with xcode but at the bottom of the project
> window was this statement:

Interesting, it seems to work fine for me. Do you have a way to  
reproduce the crash?

> Questions:
>
> CircleView exited with status 1. The Debugger is still running. Use
> 'Restart' to debug again.
>
> Where and how can I get more info about this error. Is there a
> console window in xcode? I changed the Active Build Configuration to
> Debug and ran again bug got no more info.
>
> Is there a MacRuby code debugger for the Ruby code?
>
> What are basic strategies I can do to figure out if this is a Ruby,
> MacRuby, or Core issue?

It really depends on the error. If it crashes, it's more probably a  
MacRuby bug. If it just exists at the middle of the program execution,  
it's also more probably a MacRuby bug. If the program exists with a  
Ruby exception, then it might be either a MacRuby bug, or a bug in the  
application itself.

> How can I create a distributable app? The PathDemo app is only 31k so
> obviously doesn't include the MacRuby framework?

You would have to copy MacRuby.framework in the Frameworks directory  
of your app, then change the linking (see install_name_tool(1)).  
Currently you have to do this manually, but in the future we will  
provide tools to automatize this.

> I'm on 10.5.2 (about to be 10.5.3 after I restart) -- can I make an
> MacRuby app which will also work on 10.4.x Intel and PPC?

No, Tiger (10.4) is not supported.

> I have a bunch of Ruby experience and very little with Cocoa. Besides
> what doc comes with xcode does anybody have suggestions about other
> good resources for learning Cocoa.  Book recommendations are great
> but I prefer books I can buy in both paper and pdf form like the ones
> fromPragmattic Programmers.

I don't have any suggestion here, but most Cocoa is well documented on  
developer.apple.com, and you can also download and print pdfs instead  
of browsing the HTML files.

> I'd like to write a custom PhotBooth application.

That would be nice :) I wonder if there is a public API available to  
access the iSight though.

Laurent