[MacRuby-devel] Advice for Total Tyro

Alex Heaton alex at heaton.me
Sat Oct 15 22:23:45 PDT 2011


I'm a ruby developer learning the cocoa ropes at the moment, so
hopefully my thoughts are useful here:

Ruby isn't actually a replacement for objective-c. In the sense that
you can't get through making an app with just ruby knowledge, it's
going to take a lot of working with c too, even if it's just reading
the docs and working out APIs.
Maybe you could try diving into the objective-c side of things
initially and learn ruby separately at the same time. After your first
couple of learning apps, switch to using MacRuby, then you'll
experience with ruby on its own and also have some idea how both ways
work.

Using that approach I've been able to get by with relatively little actual
coding in Obj-c, but I've still needed to learn a working knowledge of it.

Hope that helps,
Alex

On 16 Oct 2011, at 01:33, Elliot Temple <curi at curi.us> wrote:

>
> On Oct 15, 2011, at 5:12 PM, Bryan Harrison wrote:
>
>> Older & Wisers:
>>
>> Having done enough web development, network design, and systems administration for one lifetime, I've decided this winter is a fine time to leave all that behind and become an applications developer.  Wanting to make consumer products and having no interest in Windows, most of the territory ahead is obvious.
>>
>> But still, I'd appreciate some advice from those who're already there, particularly with regard to MacRuby.
>>
>> Specifically, has development for OS X and iOS reached the point where it would be reasonable to pursue Ruby before or even instead of Objective-C?
>
> There's no ruby on iOS to my knowledge. Definitely no MacRuby.
>
> There is work being done to make it happen, which started at least a year ago. I don't know the status, level of effort or ETA.
>
> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684403
>
> https://twitter.com/#!/lrz/status/24137640579
>
>> I've modest C background, am OOP-familiar, am not versed in Cocoa, and am only marginally familiar with Ruby.  Obviously I'd like to get up to speed as soon as possible, but I'm not under any pressure and expecting this will be the next 5-10 years of my life, would rather be good than quick.
>>
>> Objective-C is not without a certain homely charm, but Ruby is obviously the more modern language.  So�c
>>
>> Does Xcode treat Ruby as family, or is it a stepchild toiling in the ashes?  Are there other tools I'll need?
>
> No it's definitely not family. But it's possible.
>
>
> I think what you should do depends on what type of app you want to make. If you're doing a simple app, without a lot of code, and just want a working UI to present some content, I'd say just try Objective C, and you could always do you second app with MacRuby once you know how stuff works better. If you're doing a complicated app, maybe with a big piece of autonomous code that you then hook up to a thin UI layer, then there's more motivation to use ruby since you'll be focussed more on just writing lots of code.
>
> If most of what you do is call into some Apple APIs, who cares what language you're using? But the more you write interesting code, the more I think it matters.
>
>
> Also I'd advise against planning too much upfront. Try stuff out. Write a simple app each way before committing yourself to any big decision. It's not too hard to get started and understand your options better.
>
>
> Hope that's helpful. I'm sure some other people here know more.
>
> -- Elliot Temple
> http://beginningofinfinity.com/
>
>
>
>
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