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RubyMotion - Ruby for iOS

485 points by acangiano 14y ago

dmitryso 14y ago
I don't remember the last time I was excited about some new technology, but rubymotion is a thing I was looking for since the release of iOS SDK. I was doing ruby for 5 years, and switched to iOS/ObjC half a year ago, and I still can't stand the Objective-C syntax.
cm_richards 14y ago
Ruby : "The limits of my language define the limits of my world" if string =~ /foobar(\d\w)/# Objective-C : NSError *error = NULL; NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:@"foobar(\\d*\\w)" options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive error:&error]; NSTextCheckingResult *match = [regex firstMatchInString:string options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [string length])]; if (match) { NSLog(@"The limits of my language define the limits of my world - Wittgenstein") } Enough said?
octopus 14y ago
This is huge from a programmer productivity perspective.
melvinram 14y ago
Will apps created using this have any problems getting approved with App Store?
- deedubaya 14y ago
  At the bottom of the features page >RubyMotion is 100% compliant with Apple's App Store policies. Your code is compiled ahead-of-time, never interpreted, and you access the entire set of iOS public APIs. At the end, a RubyMotion app looks pretty much the same as an Objective-C app.
- acangiano 14y ago
  No. From the FAQ (http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq): "Applications submitted to the App Store must conform to the Review Guidelines dictated by Apple. RubyMotion implements a dialect of Ruby that conforms to those rules. RubyMotion apps are fully compiled, do not download or interpret code and are using public iOS APIs through the exact same machinery as regular Objective-C apps."
  - melvinram 14y ago
    Yay!!
  - fourgone 14y ago
    I would rather see confirmation from Apple (doubtful) or developers who have successfully submitted apps to the App Store.
tommy_m 14y ago
Cool free 50 min video on RubyMotion - http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion
spicyj 14y ago
This looks really cool -- would be nice if there was some way to try it out before buying.
jeremymcanally 14y ago
This is from Laurent Sansonetti, the original author and long time maintainer of MacRuby. It doesn't say that anywhere until after you buy it, which they should really change since that made me go from "Uh, did some random guys just take MacRuby's code and hack in some extra stuff to sell it?" to "Holy crap so THIS is what he's been working on!"
- octopus 14y ago
  Actually they say that this is based on MacRuby: http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ at the bottom of the page: RubyMotion is based on MacRuby, a widely-used implementation of Ruby created and maintained by Apple for over 4 years. Starting from a solid and stable code base, the guys who originally created MacRuby now work on RubyMotion. You're in good hands.
  - jeremymcanally 14y ago
    Ah, now I see! I suppose I glossed over that. It should be bigger. ;)
    - 100k 14y ago
      I agree, I looked at pretty much every page on the site wondering what the connection was to MacRuby, until I found it in the FAQ.
- RowanH 14y ago
  Some impressive stuff here, check out the getting started video at around 4:30 The 'positioning a label' live from the simulator command line is way cool. http://www.rubymotion.com/getting-started/ http://www.rubymotion.com/getting-started/
sant0sk1 14y ago
This is really awesome, but I found some bad news in the FAQ: > Because RubyMotion implements a dialect of Ruby that is statically compiled, regular Ruby gems will not work in RubyMotion. We provide documentation which describes how to architect gems to work with RubyMotion.
- deedubaya 14y ago
  Anyone who has done any serious MacRuby development would already tell you that normal Ruby gems aren't usually the best way to go (slow, don't use Objective-C frameworks). I can see where this could be a problem if you typically just glue gems together to make products, but if you're used to rolling your own solutions it isn't a big deal. Sucks, but not a show stopper.
- jballanc 14y ago
  On the upside, CocoaPods support is integrated with RubyMotion. Sure, there is a whole world of useful Ruby gems, but, generally speaking, the libraries you'll find in CocoaPods have been developed specifically for iOS.
- thibaut_barrere 14y ago
  I personally don't care, as I will mostly use a mixture of well-tested, iOS specific ruby libraries I will write and share, together with ObjC libraries.
- jamesgeck0 14y ago
  I didn't see any documentation describing the ins and outs of statically compiled Ruby. Anyone know how it differs from normal Ruby?
tobiasbischoff 14y ago
nice, but where is the advantage over just using objc? the hard part of coding for iOS isn't objc, it's learning how to use all the API's.
- jeremymcanally 14y ago
  I write code in both Ruby and Objective C pretty regularly, but man oh man is my Ruby code SO MUCH shorter and cleaner in a lot of respects. A lot of the Objective-C API's are just terribly terribly verbose. My favorite one to whine about is NSTask; it shouldn't take me 10 lines of code to spawn a simple external process. :P For me, I prefer working in Ruby. Some people don't. But I think this will probably spurn me to get more serious about writing more iPhone apps, and it should open the door for a few more people who work on Ruby-based apps to write their own simple iPhone apps rather than paying a consultant to do it for them.
  - cageface 14y ago
    But you're going to be coding to those same Apis in ruby too, just with a lightly different syntax.
    - jeremymcanally 14y ago
      No, actually. I can use Ruby's nice facilities for external processes (e.g., "x = `ls`" to get a directory listing or "system('do_something')") or simple regular expressions (i.e., "'string' =~ /my_regex/" and friends vs. NSRegularExpression's verbose syntax). I'm not forced to use Cocoa's verbose API if it has a nice Ruby wrapper (and if it doesn't have one, I can make one).
      - cageface 14y ago
        This: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/blob/master/GestureTable/app/view_controller.rb https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/blob/master/Ges... Is what 95% of the code in your app is going to look like and I don't really see what it's buying you. You're also throwing away all the type checking you'd get on essentially the same code in Obj-C. I really like Ruby but I don't intend to use it for iOS apps.
vldo 14y ago
missing trial period so i'd rather wait for mobiruby
- jballanc 14y ago
  The difference is that, as far as I can see, mobiruby is a Ruby interpreter/VM embedded in an Obj-C application. This is in contrast to MacRuby which is implemented directly on top of the Obj-C runtime. So, MobiRuby still has to go through the work of converting Ruby objects into Obj-C objects, whereas in MacRuby a Ruby object is an Obj-C object. For a practical example of what this means, see the most recent sample code that was released for mobiruby: https://gist.github.com/2577620 https://gist.github.com/2577620
- pjmlp 14y ago
  But mobiruby does not compile to native code, does it?
ScotterC 14y ago
I could see this really taking off. My worry is that it would take off so well that the ruby gem community could get fragmented into libraries for RubyMotion and libraries for regular ruby projects.
- jeremymcanally 14y ago
  I'm supposing that they will probably implement it as another platform option like you can do right now for JRuby/Windows/etc. It shouldn't affect much. I haven't looked at the documentation, though, so I can't say for sure.
  - hlidotbe 14y ago
    As mentioned above, CocoaPods will probably be used for this purpose as it is already the de-facto repository for MacRuby.
- cheald 14y ago
  There are already exclusive libraries for MRI/JRuby, so adding a third platform doesn't seem like it would break the world. Tools like Bundler do a great job of keeping things moving smoothly.
  - ScotterC 14y ago
    Didn't realize bundler kept track of what ruby you were using.
    - cheald 14y ago
      Yeah, check the "platforms" directive.
anuraj 14y ago
Problem in search for a solution? Apple is walled garden - provides the best integrated IDE for iphone development that is a pleasure to use. Language is just a small part of the puzzle. For each task, the best suited environment and language. There is no panacea.
deleted 14y ago
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smoody 14y ago
"At the end, a RubyMotion app looks pretty much the same as an Objective-C app." ( from bottom of: http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ ). pretty much the same as an Objective-C app? Anyone have any clue as to why they didn't state apps in the two languages would look identical?
- cschneid 14y ago
  Different compilers will generate different compiled code, even on identical input (ie, clang vs. GCC). So the binary will be different.
  - elsurudo 14y ago
    I think he's commenting on why they wouldn't LOOK identical, as in UI. UI is a finicky thing, but assuming this allows you to use all Apple APIs, there is no reason you couldn't get an identical-looking UI using this.
    - cmelbye 14y ago
      I'm fairly sure that section is talking about compiled code, structure of the app, the archive, etc, considering it says "compiled ahead-of-time, never interpreted, and you access the entire set of iOS public APIs." the previous paragraph. You're right though, there's no reason the UI wouldn't look identical as well.
sunjain 14y ago
Now there is an alternative to Objective-C in iOS development(for Rubyists). This is similar to development of Coffescript. There is nothing wrong with Objective-C, it is just that folks who prefer the elegance and beauty of Ruby have an option. I think this will be great combination - beautiful & elegant language for creating apps on a beautiful platform.
jballanc 14y ago
Be sure not to miss all the sample code: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples In particular, for those looking for a side-by-side comparison of what it means to use Ruby instead of Obj-C, be sure to check out the GestureTable sample: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/GestureTable https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/Ges... which was based on the JTGestureBasdeTableView: https://github.com/mystcolor/JTGestureBasedTableViewDemo https://github.com/mystcolor/JTGestureBasedTableViewDemo
typicalrunt 14y ago
What's with the price difference between Canada and US orders? It's CAD$152.82 versus US$149.99. With the Canadian dollar currently worth about 1 cent more than the US, I'm surprised to see that there is a price difference at all.
- jamie_ca 14y ago
  The nominal exchange rate you see has only a passing resemblance to exchange rates charged by CC processors.
tlear 14y ago
No interface builder? Depending on what type of apps you make it can be a big issue I think
- malyk 14y ago
  The problem with interface builder is that it only exposes some properties and others you have to set in your class anyway. Why can't I set the background image of a view in interface builder, for instance? With RubyMotion you get to roughly lay out your controls, and then you get to use the interactive interpreter for fine-grained adjustments. See around the 5:30 mark in the getting started video for an example.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
jwarzech 14y ago
I've played around with what seems like ever alternative framework under the sun (Titanium, Rhodes, PhoneGap, MonoTouch, Corona) and have been pretty frustrated with how clunky they usually feel. However with everything its claiming and the decent price point I'm toying with purchasing site unseen...just wish I could try it for a few hours first.
- acangiano 14y ago
  Two suggestions: 1) http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/exclusive-building-ruby-ios-applications-with-rubymotion.ars http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/exclusive-build... (Review with code) 2) http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion (Screencast)
- randomdata 14y ago
  MacRuby is probably a decent place to start. While it won't mirror a true RubyMotion environment, it should be close enough to get a feel for what you're in for.
instakill 14y ago
Are there any example apps in the wild that were made using RubyMotion?
- jamesjn 14y ago
  There's a few example rubymotion apps at: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples I find them really easy to follow.
sjtgraham 14y ago
I don't see the point of this. Objective-C is not hard to learn, and with ARC, blocks, the new literals for NSArray and NSDictionary, etc, Objective-C has actually become pleasant to write IMO. The example RubyMotion code also doesn't look very nice either. The problem with Rubyists (being one for the past 6 years I feel qualified to say this) is in general they want to use Ruby for everything. It's not always the best tool for the job.
- tolmasky 14y ago
  I've never understood this logic: The existence of this project is not an attack on Objective-C. Objective-C is not hard to learn and awesome, I agree. But what does that have to do with providing an alternative? There can exist multiple good solutions to one problem. You said it yourself: Ruby is not always the best tool for the job, perhaps Objective-C is also not always the best tool for the job. Perhaps the use of UIKit through Ruby will provide interesting insights that will later be used to make Objective-C better: all the Objective-C 2.0 additions (including the ones you mention) were certainly a response to modern languages that made a lot of things easier for programmers. As an Objective-C programmer myself, I was initially really turned off by this attitude from the JavaScript community: (Why do we need we need a LISP implementation in JS? It's already a functional language! Why do we need Objective-J? JS already kind of has classes!). Hilariously enough, the only language that was "accepted" by the JS community was the one that specifically promised that it wouldn't add any new features: CoffeeScript. I missed the Objective-C community precisely because I had always found it quite unreligious and practical: to each his own when it comes to development -- I hope that with its latest success it hasn't become more dogmatic and insular.
  - nupark2 14y ago
    I am personally concerned that the Rubyists will flood the iOS development space, bringing their culture and introducing a dogmatic and insular environment. We already have -- and without great fanfare -- Lua, JavaScript, C# (MonoTouch), et al. This seems somehow different.
    - 14y ago
toisanji 14y ago
How does memory management work with ruby and iOS? I did not find the information on the website.
- acangiano 14y ago
  From the Features: "It's Ruby, you don't need to think about managing memory. Ever. RubyMotion will by itself release the objects you create when they are no longer needed. Our memory model, similar to Objective-C ARC in design, does not require any extra memory or processor footprint to allocate and reclaim unused objects."
  - webjprgm 14y ago
    I still wonder how they did that. The classic problem with reference counting is correctly releasing cycles, which ARC handles by allowing "weak" references. How does MacRuby know when to insert a weak reference as opposed to the usual "strong" reference? If that could be automatically detected, why does Obj-C ARC not automatically do it for you?
    - chc 14y ago
      "Object cycles, when two or more objects refer to each other, are currently not handled by the runtime, but will be in future releases." So, basically, you're stuck with retain cycles right now. My bet is that they implement a way of marking weak references rather than becoming more intelligent than ARC.
      - smparkes 14y ago
        I wonder how big a deal this will be. Relying on GC feels like it goes hand in hand with dynamic languages. I'm used to not having to worry about cycles. Of course, I guess I'm use to not having to worry too much about memory, either ... Weak references aren't a panacea. It's not that uncommon to have cycles where all edges are equally strong. Any social graph ... I use use counts to collect those cycles. ARC doesn't let you use use counts, but you don't have to use ARC everywhere. You do have to access to the underlying use counts ... MacRuby should allow access to that (it's just a standard Cocoa call) as long as it doesn't keep stray retains around that screw up my count balances ...
zbowling 14y ago
Part of me is happy. Apple pushed MacRuby before Lion and effectively killed it internally going forward after the ARC announcement. MacRuby relies on the GC capability of Objective-C which is incompatible with their new ARC baby. Just a few days ago I wanted to take a backend framework we wrote and build a command line tool to call some of it's methods in MacRuby (lots of command line parsing and Ruby has good facilities for that) but forgot we converted that framework to ARC. No dice. This looks promising but at the same time I really wish the backend compiler was open sourced and worked on Mac and not just iOS.
- hlidotbe 14y ago
  Since Laurent Sansonetti is the author of MacRuby AND RubyMotion, he already said feature from RM will be backported (and hence open-sourced) to MacRuby
  - jballanc 14y ago
    I'll simply point you at Laurent's email to the MacRuby-devel mailing list about a month ago. I think re-reading it in light of today's announcement could be...informative ;-) http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-April/008702.html http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-Apr...
- thought_alarm 14y ago
  It doesn't sound like they're using ObjC garbage collection, which I do not think would be available in iOS anyway: "Our memory model, similar to Objective-C ARC in design, does not require any extra memory or processor footprint to allocate and reclaim unused objects"
e28eta 14y ago
The most exciting part of this for me is the automation and integration with Apple's tools. For instance, built-in TestFlight rake task, or build and run on device/simulator. I'd love to borrow some of that for a CI build system (which for me is currently a large shell script that could be improved on). I'm also very interested by the interactive REPL that can run code inside my application. LLDB is good, but falls short for me occasionally.
bherms 14y ago
Just a note, not sure if this is intentional, but the audio on the video is in stereo, but with no right channel. edit: also, please stop the heavy breathing into the mic. Driving me crazy!! :)
- SeoxyS 14y ago
  I could not watch the video (on headphones) because it is physically painful to do so. That's a HUGE problem.
  - bherms 14y ago
    Exactly.
octopus 14y ago
A suggestion for Laurent Sansonetti will be to release this similarly with the way Xamarin has released Mono for iOS. Basically you should be able to download and use the library for free in the iPhone/iPad simulator and you will need to buy a license if you want to be able to export the app to the actual device. This licensing model has the advantage that is similar with what Apple does for developing apps for iOS. This will let you, as a developer, try and learn to use RubyMotion before you actually buy a license.
- grey-area 14y ago
  I'd second this suggestion. I love the idea of using ruby on ios, this looks like a womderful solution, and it looks far more rubyish in syntax than Mobiruby (which isn't there yet anyway), but I would really like to try it out for myself in the simulator and develop a few simple apps before deciding whether I would want to use it professionally. If they could limit it to simulator only for free it would be much easier to tell if it is going to be really useful or more painful than just putting up with obj c. Having a demo might even boost adoption. A question for the developers - did you consider this option and reject it for some reason?
- daemonza 14y ago
  2nd this, that would be awesome. I am very tempted to give Rubymotion a try, but not sure I am ready at the moment to shell out the cash for it.
guynamedloren 14y ago
> RubyMotion is built on top of iOS. You have access to the entire set of public iOS APIs and can also use 3rd-party Objective-C libraries or Gems So this should be compatible with cocos2d right?
- octopus 14y ago
  cocos2d is writen in Objective-C so in principle it should be compatible with RubyMotion. Not so sure about the ARC integration (last time I've checked cocos2d was only "ARC compatible"). I've seen some work arounds using a cocos2d as a static library (no ARC enabled) linked with a main Objective-C application that uses ARC. It should work ... but I can't give you a final answer.
- zealog 14y ago
  There is already an example project on Github using Cocos2d in a RubyMotion app. https://github.com/anydiem/cocosmotion https://github.com/anydiem/cocosmotion
robomartin 14y ago
I am not criticizing. This is a perfectly neutral question: Isn't the issue with a lot of these "look Ma, no Objective-C" approaches in that there are always little nagging issues here and there? I mean, Apple is constantly moving Objective-C/Xcode/iOS (notice I didn't say "forward"). Isn't it somewhat dangerous to adopt peripheral approaches for development rather than staying (suffering?) with the Apple-provided tools? Now, if someone has an alternative IDE that truly allows me to record Xcode to a DVD and perform a ritual burning ceremony of said DVD...that would be something.
- aiscott 14y ago
  I said this in another reply, but I'll reiterate here. It's not the lack of Objective-C that is the big deal here. Afterall you are still interfacing with cocoa, and are stuck with a lot of the verbosity in doing that. The real key to this is the REPL and interactivity between coding and the running app. Being able to edit bits of functionality and structure in the running app, and immediately see the results is AWESOME!
  - robomartin 14y ago
    I don't know Ruby. Therefore, by my own admission, this comes out of complete ignorance. I am currently working on a project that uses a genetic solver and some fairly complex state machines driven by fairly involved databases. I can't possibly see how something like this could be made to be interactive in terms of the development process. Generally speaking you are writing a lot of code before you get to compile and see the results. And, personally, I don't have any issues with the compilation process. What do you mean by "interactive"?
    - kcbanner 14y ago
      Your application is something that doesn't lend itself to the problem that this solves. With UI related things, it is often very helpful to be able to tweak UI elements while the program runs, instead of the tweak, compile, run cyle.
    - 14y ago
pepijndevos 14y ago
I thought Flash got in trouble for targeting iOS with something not originally written in JS or ObjC, is that still true?
hemancuso 14y ago
Anyone know if this comes with the ruby stdlib?
- dmarkow 14y ago
  It doesn't look like it. You need to use the iOS alternatives (in this case, NSDate). (main)>> require 'date' => #<RuntimeError: #require is not supported in RubyMotion> (main)>> Date => #<NameError: uninitialized constant Date>
drpancake 14y ago
From the screencast it looks like they altered Ruby syntax by adding named parameters to conform with Obj-C's way of specifying prototypes. I guess this is a trade-off for the fact that Obj-C has some unusual syntax that has no real analog in Ruby -- if you've ever tried developing with PyObjC you'll be familiar with how odd it looks.
shapeshed 14y ago
There's a reasonably new language called HTML that is a good development platform too. Works on all devices.
- d1egoaz 14y ago
  :D
- michael_f 14y ago
  "Good" and "Works" being relative terms, of course. YMMV, especially amongst devices in the installed base where web views aren't GPU-backed (e.g, on one common platform, that being the vast majority).
riffraff 14y ago
anybody understood what rubymotion offers over the standard macruby? edit: got it, static compile and no gc
TheSmoke 14y ago
so, we need a mac for this. right?
- wmboy 14y ago
  Yes... "You will need a Mac running OSX 10.6 or higher." - http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq
jstepien 14y ago
At the very beginning of the presentation he underlines the importance of the static compiler RubyMotion is based on, yet at 7:30 when he compiles a file with a name error in it the compiler doesn't even file a warning. Such non-existent methods and other similar errors should be caught at compile time if we're talking about solid AOT compilation.
freditup 14y ago
My thoughts: "Hey! This looks pretty neat. Oh it's $150 on sale, forget this. Oh it's only for macs, glad I never bought this piece of garbage." That being said, it could be great, I have no idea.
- chc 14y ago
  The iOS SDK itself is only for Macs. It seems like a reasonable requirement for something that depends on the SDK to run on the same platform.
- danssig 14y ago
  I think you've clicked on the wrong site. Digg/Myspace is --------------> that way.
- lectrick 14y ago
  Maybe that's because Macs don't generally deal with pieces of garbage. Whether that's tools, or users.
  - freditup 14y ago
    If you really think one platform is so superior to another, you're missing the point entirely.
derekorgan 14y ago
Looks very promising. I love Ruby and I initially hated Objective-C but I have to admit now I find it very powerful. The biggest missing link here seems to be the Storyboard. Its a really nice option in xCode. Have I missed something, how are layouts defined separately from code?
stephth 14y ago
I love writing Ruby code, but today I'm finally at a point where I also feel happy and productive with Objective-C. What made my eyes bulge is this: http://www.rubymotion.com/developer-center/guides/project-management/#_configuration http://www.rubymotion.com/developer-center/guides/project-ma... No XCode. Instead of obscure and impenetrable project files, a convention over configuration Rakefile. Clean and Ruby-like workflows and repositories. While you can certainly configure an Xcode workspace to program in RubyMotion, we do not provide any support for Xcode out-of-the-box. We do not believe that Xcode makes a good environment for Ruby development (or development in general). Ruby also makes it very easy to write great Domain-Specific Languages that can be used as elegant alternatives to graphical user interface or data modeling tools. [1] Laurent Sansonetti gets it. I've been writing iOS code for three years and have never been able to figure out how to have a frictionless workflow around XCode, everything about it is convoluted. The idea of automating frequent development tasks with Ruby generators and DSLs sounds exciting and promising. [1] http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq
- petercooper 14y ago
  Which makes me wonder.. is it possible to rig up such an environment for standard Objective C iOS app development? It could be huge.
  - Zev 14y ago
    Do Makefiles count? Xcode project are largely (not so) shiny wrappers around Makefiles and keeping track of files.
  - GreySyntax 14y ago
    For writing iOS apps I tend to use the THEOS makefile framework by DHowett gives you fine grained control over everything :)
  - lobster_johnson 14y ago
    It's entirely possible to use Make (or whatever you want) to build a project. There's no magic to Xcode. You just need to invoke to correct compiler and linker (Apple's GCC, usually), include the right flags and frameworks for them, and probably invoke some Apple tools for things like code-signing.
daniel_sim 14y ago
Should make for some good bridge FU on hypercritical this week...
jgavris 14y ago
I don't understand all the hate for Objective-C, and at the same time love for Ruby. Objective-C is far easier to read, with named parameters and types everywhere. Ruby is often so minimal that you need to interpret the whole program yourself to understand what's going on...
sthulbourn 14y ago
It's nice, I'm new to using ruby (I've been an iOS dev for a while now), I'd give it ago. But I assume it uses storyboards in the same way as ObjC, set it in the target and in the Info.plist, and it figures it out... it'd be nice to see it working though.
- botj 14y ago
  I second this.
EternalFury 14y ago
I'll say this again: No programming language is fundamentally bad. Bad programmers have a tendency to move from language to language, blaming their tools for their lack of skill. This stuff is exciting.
- jbrechtel 14y ago
  I wholeheartedly disagree. There are bad programming languages. Brainfuck is a good example. I don't mean that as a joke, but only as proof that programming languages can be objectively bad. As an extension of that I'd say that languages can be bad because of their constituent parts (syntax, semantics, constructs, features or lack of, etc..). Some languages have constituent parts that I'd say are objectively bad. I'll argue all day that Objective-C's handling of nil is stupid beyond belief. Nil/Null itself is bad enough...
davidrupp 14y ago
Purchased. Good job, @lrz. Glad to know your departure from Apple and (apparent) distancing from MacRuby were in a good cause.
- superalloy 14y ago
  He did not distance himself from MacRuby, though: http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-April/008702.html http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-Apr...
damian2000 14y ago
Sounds awesome - gives me another reason to buy a Mac.
christiangenco 14y ago
I love this. It looks like exactly what I've been looking for since the iPhone SDK was first announced. I've been a web/RoR developer since high school but could never find the motivation to get used to all of Objective C/XCode's quirks. I've tried everything from PhoneGap to Appcelerator to mimicking native feel in a browser, but it was never enough. This is perfect. But quite frankly, I can't afford it. I'm a college student living on $25/week for food - I can't justify spending 6 weeks of food on an experiment. If I could try it out? If I could build my killer app first and know that it works? It wouldn't hurt as much, but $150 is still a lot of money.
- Zev 14y ago
  But you could justify spending 4 weeks food on an experiment? Because you'll need that $100 to put an app on your device, as well.
  - christiangenco 14y ago
    Ahh yes, that's not particularly fun either.
- 89a 14y ago
  If you'd sat down and spent all that time on Obj-C you'd be coding away at it by now. Sometimes searching for an easy way out is a waste of time.
  - christiangenco 14y ago
    Fair point.
ef4 14y ago
What annoys the crap out of me isn't objective C, it's XCode. This looks worth it just to have an XCode-free toolchain.
Morcane 14y ago
I would love to try this out, but a 100+ euro pricetag for evaluation is a bit steep (yeahyeah, I know, but hey...Jetbrains gives a 30 day eval version of their iOS IDE so why not RubyMotion?). Any chance on a (feature crippled) evaluation version?
funkyboy 14y ago
I am wondering is anybody asked for a debugger/stepper. Will a dev survive without those? Also, are you ready to write all the code behind xibs?

485 points by acangiano 14y ago

I don't remember the last time I was excited about some new technology, but rubymotion is a thing I was looking for since the release of iOS SDK. I was doing ruby for 5 years, and switched to iOS/ObjC half a year ago, and I still can't stand the Objective-C syntax.

cm_richards 14y ago

Ruby : "The limits of my language define the limits of my world" if string =~ /foobar(\d\w)/# Objective-C : NSError *error = NULL; NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:@"foobar(\\d*\\w)" options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive error:&error]; NSTextCheckingResult *match = [regex firstMatchInString:string options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [string length])]; if (match) { NSLog(@"The limits of my language define the limits of my world - Wittgenstein") } Enough said?

octopus 14y ago

This is huge from a programmer productivity perspective.

melvinram 14y ago

Will apps created using this have any problems getting approved with App Store?

deedubaya 14y ago
At the bottom of the features page >RubyMotion is 100% compliant with Apple's App Store policies. Your code is compiled ahead-of-time, never interpreted, and you access the entire set of iOS public APIs. At the end, a RubyMotion app looks pretty much the same as an Objective-C app.
acangiano 14y ago
No. From the FAQ (http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq): "Applications submitted to the App Store must conform to the Review Guidelines dictated by Apple. RubyMotion implements a dialect of Ruby that conforms to those rules. RubyMotion apps are fully compiled, do not download or interpret code and are using public iOS APIs through the exact same machinery as regular Objective-C apps."
- melvinram 14y ago
  Yay!!
- fourgone 14y ago
  I would rather see confirmation from Apple (doubtful) or developers who have successfully submitted apps to the App Store.

tommy_m 14y ago

Cool free 50 min video on RubyMotion - http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion

spicyj 14y ago

This looks really cool -- would be nice if there was some way to try it out before buying.

jeremymcanally 14y ago

This is from Laurent Sansonetti, the original author and long time maintainer of MacRuby. It doesn't say that anywhere until after you buy it, which they should really change since that made me go from "Uh, did some random guys just take MacRuby's code and hack in some extra stuff to sell it?" to "Holy crap so THIS is what he's been working on!"

octopus 14y ago
Actually they say that this is based on MacRuby: http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ at the bottom of the page: RubyMotion is based on MacRuby, a widely-used implementation of Ruby created and maintained by Apple for over 4 years. Starting from a solid and stable code base, the guys who originally created MacRuby now work on RubyMotion. You're in good hands.
- jeremymcanally 14y ago
  Ah, now I see! I suppose I glossed over that. It should be bigger. ;)
  - 100k 14y ago
    I agree, I looked at pretty much every page on the site wondering what the connection was to MacRuby, until I found it in the FAQ.
RowanH 14y ago
Some impressive stuff here, check out the getting started video at around 4:30 The 'positioning a label' live from the simulator command line is way cool. http://www.rubymotion.com/getting-started/ http://www.rubymotion.com/getting-started/

sant0sk1 14y ago

This is really awesome, but I found some bad news in the FAQ: > Because RubyMotion implements a dialect of Ruby that is statically compiled, regular Ruby gems will not work in RubyMotion. We provide documentation which describes how to architect gems to work with RubyMotion.

deedubaya 14y ago
Anyone who has done any serious MacRuby development would already tell you that normal Ruby gems aren't usually the best way to go (slow, don't use Objective-C frameworks). I can see where this could be a problem if you typically just glue gems together to make products, but if you're used to rolling your own solutions it isn't a big deal. Sucks, but not a show stopper.
jballanc 14y ago
On the upside, CocoaPods support is integrated with RubyMotion. Sure, there is a whole world of useful Ruby gems, but, generally speaking, the libraries you'll find in CocoaPods have been developed specifically for iOS.
thibaut_barrere 14y ago
I personally don't care, as I will mostly use a mixture of well-tested, iOS specific ruby libraries I will write and share, together with ObjC libraries.
jamesgeck0 14y ago
I didn't see any documentation describing the ins and outs of statically compiled Ruby. Anyone know how it differs from normal Ruby?

tobiasbischoff 14y ago

nice, but where is the advantage over just using objc? the hard part of coding for iOS isn't objc, it's learning how to use all the API's.

jeremymcanally 14y ago
I write code in both Ruby and Objective C pretty regularly, but man oh man is my Ruby code SO MUCH shorter and cleaner in a lot of respects. A lot of the Objective-C API's are just terribly terribly verbose. My favorite one to whine about is NSTask; it shouldn't take me 10 lines of code to spawn a simple external process. :P For me, I prefer working in Ruby. Some people don't. But I think this will probably spurn me to get more serious about writing more iPhone apps, and it should open the door for a few more people who work on Ruby-based apps to write their own simple iPhone apps rather than paying a consultant to do it for them.
- cageface 14y ago
  But you're going to be coding to those same Apis in ruby too, just with a lightly different syntax.
  - jeremymcanally 14y ago
    No, actually. I can use Ruby's nice facilities for external processes (e.g., "x = `ls`" to get a directory listing or "system('do_something')") or simple regular expressions (i.e., "'string' =~ /my_regex/" and friends vs. NSRegularExpression's verbose syntax). I'm not forced to use Cocoa's verbose API if it has a nice Ruby wrapper (and if it doesn't have one, I can make one).
    - cageface 14y ago
      This: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/blob/master/GestureTable/app/view_controller.rb https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/blob/master/Ges... Is what 95% of the code in your app is going to look like and I don't really see what it's buying you. You're also throwing away all the type checking you'd get on essentially the same code in Obj-C. I really like Ruby but I don't intend to use it for iOS apps.

vldo 14y ago

missing trial period so i'd rather wait for mobiruby

jballanc 14y ago
The difference is that, as far as I can see, mobiruby is a Ruby interpreter/VM embedded in an Obj-C application. This is in contrast to MacRuby which is implemented directly on top of the Obj-C runtime. So, MobiRuby still has to go through the work of converting Ruby objects into Obj-C objects, whereas in MacRuby a Ruby object is an Obj-C object. For a practical example of what this means, see the most recent sample code that was released for mobiruby: https://gist.github.com/2577620 https://gist.github.com/2577620
pjmlp 14y ago
But mobiruby does not compile to native code, does it?

ScotterC 14y ago

I could see this really taking off. My worry is that it would take off so well that the ruby gem community could get fragmented into libraries for RubyMotion and libraries for regular ruby projects.

jeremymcanally 14y ago
I'm supposing that they will probably implement it as another platform option like you can do right now for JRuby/Windows/etc. It shouldn't affect much. I haven't looked at the documentation, though, so I can't say for sure.
- hlidotbe 14y ago
  As mentioned above, CocoaPods will probably be used for this purpose as it is already the de-facto repository for MacRuby.
cheald 14y ago
There are already exclusive libraries for MRI/JRuby, so adding a third platform doesn't seem like it would break the world. Tools like Bundler do a great job of keeping things moving smoothly.
- ScotterC 14y ago
  Didn't realize bundler kept track of what ruby you were using.
  - cheald 14y ago
    Yeah, check the "platforms" directive.

anuraj 14y ago

Problem in search for a solution? Apple is walled garden - provides the best integrated IDE for iphone development that is a pleasure to use. Language is just a small part of the puzzle. For each task, the best suited environment and language. There is no panacea.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

smoody 14y ago

"At the end, a RubyMotion app looks pretty much the same as an Objective-C app." ( from bottom of: http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ http://www.rubymotion.com/features/ ). pretty much the same as an Objective-C app? Anyone have any clue as to why they didn't state apps in the two languages would look identical?

cschneid 14y ago
Different compilers will generate different compiled code, even on identical input (ie, clang vs. GCC). So the binary will be different.
- elsurudo 14y ago
  I think he's commenting on why they wouldn't LOOK identical, as in UI. UI is a finicky thing, but assuming this allows you to use all Apple APIs, there is no reason you couldn't get an identical-looking UI using this.
  - cmelbye 14y ago
    I'm fairly sure that section is talking about compiled code, structure of the app, the archive, etc, considering it says "compiled ahead-of-time, never interpreted, and you access the entire set of iOS public APIs." the previous paragraph. You're right though, there's no reason the UI wouldn't look identical as well.

sunjain 14y ago

Now there is an alternative to Objective-C in iOS development(for Rubyists). This is similar to development of Coffescript. There is nothing wrong with Objective-C, it is just that folks who prefer the elegance and beauty of Ruby have an option. I think this will be great combination - beautiful & elegant language for creating apps on a beautiful platform.

jballanc 14y ago

Be sure not to miss all the sample code: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples In particular, for those looking for a side-by-side comparison of what it means to use Ruby instead of Obj-C, be sure to check out the GestureTable sample: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/GestureTable https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/Ges... which was based on the JTGestureBasdeTableView: https://github.com/mystcolor/JTGestureBasedTableViewDemo https://github.com/mystcolor/JTGestureBasedTableViewDemo

typicalrunt 14y ago

What's with the price difference between Canada and US orders? It's CAD$152.82 versus US$149.99. With the Canadian dollar currently worth about 1 cent more than the US, I'm surprised to see that there is a price difference at all.

jamie_ca 14y ago
The nominal exchange rate you see has only a passing resemblance to exchange rates charged by CC processors.

tlear 14y ago

No interface builder? Depending on what type of apps you make it can be a big issue I think

malyk 14y ago
The problem with interface builder is that it only exposes some properties and others you have to set in your class anyway. Why can't I set the background image of a view in interface builder, for instance? With RubyMotion you get to roughly lay out your controls, and then you get to use the interactive interpreter for fine-grained adjustments. See around the 5:30 mark in the getting started video for an example.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

jwarzech 14y ago

I've played around with what seems like ever alternative framework under the sun (Titanium, Rhodes, PhoneGap, MonoTouch, Corona) and have been pretty frustrated with how clunky they usually feel. However with everything its claiming and the decent price point I'm toying with purchasing site unseen...just wish I could try it for a few hours first.

acangiano 14y ago
Two suggestions: 1) http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/exclusive-building-ruby-ios-applications-with-rubymotion.ars http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/exclusive-build... (Review with code) 2) http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion http://pragmaticstudio.com/screencasts/rubymotion (Screencast)
randomdata 14y ago
MacRuby is probably a decent place to start. While it won't mirror a true RubyMotion environment, it should be close enough to get a feel for what you're in for.

instakill 14y ago

Are there any example apps in the wild that were made using RubyMotion?

jamesjn 14y ago
There's a few example rubymotion apps at: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples I find them really easy to follow.

sjtgraham 14y ago

I don't see the point of this. Objective-C is not hard to learn, and with ARC, blocks, the new literals for NSArray and NSDictionary, etc, Objective-C has actually become pleasant to write IMO. The example RubyMotion code also doesn't look very nice either. The problem with Rubyists (being one for the past 6 years I feel qualified to say this) is in general they want to use Ruby for everything. It's not always the best tool for the job.

tolmasky 14y ago
I've never understood this logic: The existence of this project is not an attack on Objective-C. Objective-C is not hard to learn and awesome, I agree. But what does that have to do with providing an alternative? There can exist multiple good solutions to one problem. You said it yourself: Ruby is not always the best tool for the job, perhaps Objective-C is also not always the best tool for the job. Perhaps the use of UIKit through Ruby will provide interesting insights that will later be used to make Objective-C better: all the Objective-C 2.0 additions (including the ones you mention) were certainly a response to modern languages that made a lot of things easier for programmers. As an Objective-C programmer myself, I was initially really turned off by this attitude from the JavaScript community: (Why do we need we need a LISP implementation in JS? It's already a functional language! Why do we need Objective-J? JS already kind of has classes!). Hilariously enough, the only language that was "accepted" by the JS community was the one that specifically promised that it wouldn't add any new features: CoffeeScript. I missed the Objective-C community precisely because I had always found it quite unreligious and practical: to each his own when it comes to development -- I hope that with its latest success it hasn't become more dogmatic and insular.
- nupark2 14y ago
  I am personally concerned that the Rubyists will flood the iOS development space, bringing their culture and introducing a dogmatic and insular environment. We already have -- and without great fanfare -- Lua, JavaScript, C# (MonoTouch), et al. This seems somehow different.
  - 14y ago

toisanji 14y ago

How does memory management work with ruby and iOS? I did not find the information on the website.

acangiano 14y ago
From the Features: "It's Ruby, you don't need to think about managing memory. Ever. RubyMotion will by itself release the objects you create when they are no longer needed. Our memory model, similar to Objective-C ARC in design, does not require any extra memory or processor footprint to allocate and reclaim unused objects."
- webjprgm 14y ago
  I still wonder how they did that. The classic problem with reference counting is correctly releasing cycles, which ARC handles by allowing "weak" references. How does MacRuby know when to insert a weak reference as opposed to the usual "strong" reference? If that could be automatically detected, why does Obj-C ARC not automatically do it for you?
  - chc 14y ago
    "Object cycles, when two or more objects refer to each other, are currently not handled by the runtime, but will be in future releases." So, basically, you're stuck with retain cycles right now. My bet is that they implement a way of marking weak references rather than becoming more intelligent than ARC.
    - smparkes 14y ago
      I wonder how big a deal this will be. Relying on GC feels like it goes hand in hand with dynamic languages. I'm used to not having to worry about cycles. Of course, I guess I'm use to not having to worry too much about memory, either ... Weak references aren't a panacea. It's not that uncommon to have cycles where all edges are equally strong. Any social graph ... I use use counts to collect those cycles. ARC doesn't let you use use counts, but you don't have to use ARC everywhere. You do have to access to the underlying use counts ... MacRuby should allow access to that (it's just a standard Cocoa call) as long as it doesn't keep stray retains around that screw up my count balances ...

zbowling 14y ago

Part of me is happy. Apple pushed MacRuby before Lion and effectively killed it internally going forward after the ARC announcement. MacRuby relies on the GC capability of Objective-C which is incompatible with their new ARC baby. Just a few days ago I wanted to take a backend framework we wrote and build a command line tool to call some of it's methods in MacRuby (lots of command line parsing and Ruby has good facilities for that) but forgot we converted that framework to ARC. No dice. This looks promising but at the same time I really wish the backend compiler was open sourced and worked on Mac and not just iOS.

hlidotbe 14y ago
Since Laurent Sansonetti is the author of MacRuby AND RubyMotion, he already said feature from RM will be backported (and hence open-sourced) to MacRuby
- jballanc 14y ago
  I'll simply point you at Laurent's email to the MacRuby-devel mailing list about a month ago. I think re-reading it in light of today's announcement could be...informative ;-) http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-April/008702.html http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-Apr...
thought_alarm 14y ago
It doesn't sound like they're using ObjC garbage collection, which I do not think would be available in iOS anyway: "Our memory model, similar to Objective-C ARC in design, does not require any extra memory or processor footprint to allocate and reclaim unused objects"

e28eta 14y ago

The most exciting part of this for me is the automation and integration with Apple's tools. For instance, built-in TestFlight rake task, or build and run on device/simulator. I'd love to borrow some of that for a CI build system (which for me is currently a large shell script that could be improved on). I'm also very interested by the interactive REPL that can run code inside my application. LLDB is good, but falls short for me occasionally.

bherms 14y ago

Just a note, not sure if this is intentional, but the audio on the video is in stereo, but with no right channel. edit: also, please stop the heavy breathing into the mic. Driving me crazy!! :)

SeoxyS 14y ago
I could not watch the video (on headphones) because it is physically painful to do so. That's a HUGE problem.
- bherms 14y ago
  Exactly.

octopus 14y ago

A suggestion for Laurent Sansonetti will be to release this similarly with the way Xamarin has released Mono for iOS. Basically you should be able to download and use the library for free in the iPhone/iPad simulator and you will need to buy a license if you want to be able to export the app to the actual device. This licensing model has the advantage that is similar with what Apple does for developing apps for iOS. This will let you, as a developer, try and learn to use RubyMotion before you actually buy a license.

grey-area 14y ago
I'd second this suggestion. I love the idea of using ruby on ios, this looks like a womderful solution, and it looks far more rubyish in syntax than Mobiruby (which isn't there yet anyway), but I would really like to try it out for myself in the simulator and develop a few simple apps before deciding whether I would want to use it professionally. If they could limit it to simulator only for free it would be much easier to tell if it is going to be really useful or more painful than just putting up with obj c. Having a demo might even boost adoption. A question for the developers - did you consider this option and reject it for some reason?
daemonza 14y ago
2nd this, that would be awesome. I am very tempted to give Rubymotion a try, but not sure I am ready at the moment to shell out the cash for it.

guynamedloren 14y ago

> RubyMotion is built on top of iOS. You have access to the entire set of public iOS APIs and can also use 3rd-party Objective-C libraries or Gems So this should be compatible with cocos2d right?

octopus 14y ago
cocos2d is writen in Objective-C so in principle it should be compatible with RubyMotion. Not so sure about the ARC integration (last time I've checked cocos2d was only "ARC compatible"). I've seen some work arounds using a cocos2d as a static library (no ARC enabled) linked with a main Objective-C application that uses ARC. It should work ... but I can't give you a final answer.
zealog 14y ago
There is already an example project on Github using Cocos2d in a RubyMotion app. https://github.com/anydiem/cocosmotion https://github.com/anydiem/cocosmotion

robomartin 14y ago

I am not criticizing. This is a perfectly neutral question: Isn't the issue with a lot of these "look Ma, no Objective-C" approaches in that there are always little nagging issues here and there? I mean, Apple is constantly moving Objective-C/Xcode/iOS (notice I didn't say "forward"). Isn't it somewhat dangerous to adopt peripheral approaches for development rather than staying (suffering?) with the Apple-provided tools? Now, if someone has an alternative IDE that truly allows me to record Xcode to a DVD and perform a ritual burning ceremony of said DVD...that would be something.

aiscott 14y ago
I said this in another reply, but I'll reiterate here. It's not the lack of Objective-C that is the big deal here. Afterall you are still interfacing with cocoa, and are stuck with a lot of the verbosity in doing that. The real key to this is the REPL and interactivity between coding and the running app. Being able to edit bits of functionality and structure in the running app, and immediately see the results is AWESOME!
- robomartin 14y ago
  I don't know Ruby. Therefore, by my own admission, this comes out of complete ignorance. I am currently working on a project that uses a genetic solver and some fairly complex state machines driven by fairly involved databases. I can't possibly see how something like this could be made to be interactive in terms of the development process. Generally speaking you are writing a lot of code before you get to compile and see the results. And, personally, I don't have any issues with the compilation process. What do you mean by "interactive"?
  - kcbanner 14y ago
    Your application is something that doesn't lend itself to the problem that this solves. With UI related things, it is often very helpful to be able to tweak UI elements while the program runs, instead of the tweak, compile, run cyle.
  - 14y ago

pepijndevos 14y ago

I thought Flash got in trouble for targeting iOS with something not originally written in JS or ObjC, is that still true?

hemancuso 14y ago

Anyone know if this comes with the ruby stdlib?

dmarkow 14y ago
It doesn't look like it. You need to use the iOS alternatives (in this case, NSDate). (main)>> require 'date' => #<RuntimeError: #require is not supported in RubyMotion> (main)>> Date => #<NameError: uninitialized constant Date>

drpancake 14y ago

From the screencast it looks like they altered Ruby syntax by adding named parameters to conform with Obj-C's way of specifying prototypes. I guess this is a trade-off for the fact that Obj-C has some unusual syntax that has no real analog in Ruby -- if you've ever tried developing with PyObjC you'll be familiar with how odd it looks.

shapeshed 14y ago

There's a reasonably new language called HTML that is a good development platform too. Works on all devices.

d1egoaz 14y ago
:D
michael_f 14y ago
"Good" and "Works" being relative terms, of course. YMMV, especially amongst devices in the installed base where web views aren't GPU-backed (e.g, on one common platform, that being the vast majority).

riffraff 14y ago

anybody understood what rubymotion offers over the standard macruby? edit: got it, static compile and no gc

TheSmoke 14y ago

so, we need a mac for this. right?

wmboy 14y ago
Yes... "You will need a Mac running OSX 10.6 or higher." - http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq

jstepien 14y ago

At the very beginning of the presentation he underlines the importance of the static compiler RubyMotion is based on, yet at 7:30 when he compiles a file with a name error in it the compiler doesn't even file a warning. Such non-existent methods and other similar errors should be caught at compile time if we're talking about solid AOT compilation.

freditup 14y ago

My thoughts: "Hey! This looks pretty neat. Oh it's $150 on sale, forget this. Oh it's only for macs, glad I never bought this piece of garbage." That being said, it could be great, I have no idea.

chc 14y ago
The iOS SDK itself is only for Macs. It seems like a reasonable requirement for something that depends on the SDK to run on the same platform.
danssig 14y ago
I think you've clicked on the wrong site. Digg/Myspace is --------------> that way.
lectrick 14y ago
Maybe that's because Macs don't generally deal with pieces of garbage. Whether that's tools, or users.
- freditup 14y ago
  If you really think one platform is so superior to another, you're missing the point entirely.

derekorgan 14y ago

Looks very promising. I love Ruby and I initially hated Objective-C but I have to admit now I find it very powerful. The biggest missing link here seems to be the Storyboard. Its a really nice option in xCode. Have I missed something, how are layouts defined separately from code?

stephth 14y ago

I love writing Ruby code, but today I'm finally at a point where I also feel happy and productive with Objective-C. What made my eyes bulge is this: http://www.rubymotion.com/developer-center/guides/project-management/#_configuration http://www.rubymotion.com/developer-center/guides/project-ma... No XCode. Instead of obscure and impenetrable project files, a convention over configuration Rakefile. Clean and Ruby-like workflows and repositories. While you can certainly configure an Xcode workspace to program in RubyMotion, we do not provide any support for Xcode out-of-the-box. We do not believe that Xcode makes a good environment for Ruby development (or development in general). Ruby also makes it very easy to write great Domain-Specific Languages that can be used as elegant alternatives to graphical user interface or data modeling tools. [1] Laurent Sansonetti gets it. I've been writing iOS code for three years and have never been able to figure out how to have a frictionless workflow around XCode, everything about it is convoluted. The idea of automating frequent development tasks with Ruby generators and DSLs sounds exciting and promising. [1] http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq http://www.rubymotion.com/support/#faq

petercooper 14y ago
Which makes me wonder.. is it possible to rig up such an environment for standard Objective C iOS app development? It could be huge.
- Zev 14y ago
  Do Makefiles count? Xcode project are largely (not so) shiny wrappers around Makefiles and keeping track of files.
- GreySyntax 14y ago
  For writing iOS apps I tend to use the THEOS makefile framework by DHowett gives you fine grained control over everything :)
- lobster_johnson 14y ago
  It's entirely possible to use Make (or whatever you want) to build a project. There's no magic to Xcode. You just need to invoke to correct compiler and linker (Apple's GCC, usually), include the right flags and frameworks for them, and probably invoke some Apple tools for things like code-signing.

daniel_sim 14y ago

Should make for some good bridge FU on hypercritical this week...

jgavris 14y ago

I don't understand all the hate for Objective-C, and at the same time love for Ruby. Objective-C is far easier to read, with named parameters and types everywhere. Ruby is often so minimal that you need to interpret the whole program yourself to understand what's going on...

sthulbourn 14y ago

It's nice, I'm new to using ruby (I've been an iOS dev for a while now), I'd give it ago. But I assume it uses storyboards in the same way as ObjC, set it in the target and in the Info.plist, and it figures it out... it'd be nice to see it working though.

botj 14y ago
I second this.

EternalFury 14y ago

I'll say this again: No programming language is fundamentally bad. Bad programmers have a tendency to move from language to language, blaming their tools for their lack of skill. This stuff is exciting.

jbrechtel 14y ago
I wholeheartedly disagree. There are bad programming languages. Brainfuck is a good example. I don't mean that as a joke, but only as proof that programming languages can be objectively bad. As an extension of that I'd say that languages can be bad because of their constituent parts (syntax, semantics, constructs, features or lack of, etc..). Some languages have constituent parts that I'd say are objectively bad. I'll argue all day that Objective-C's handling of nil is stupid beyond belief. Nil/Null itself is bad enough...

davidrupp 14y ago

Purchased. Good job, @lrz. Glad to know your departure from Apple and (apparent) distancing from MacRuby were in a good cause.

superalloy 14y ago
He did not distance himself from MacRuby, though: http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-April/008702.html http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2012-Apr...

damian2000 14y ago

Sounds awesome - gives me another reason to buy a Mac.

christiangenco 14y ago

I love this. It looks like exactly what I've been looking for since the iPhone SDK was first announced. I've been a web/RoR developer since high school but could never find the motivation to get used to all of Objective C/XCode's quirks. I've tried everything from PhoneGap to Appcelerator to mimicking native feel in a browser, but it was never enough. This is perfect. But quite frankly, I can't afford it. I'm a college student living on $25/week for food - I can't justify spending 6 weeks of food on an experiment. If I could try it out? If I could build my killer app first and know that it works? It wouldn't hurt as much, but $150 is still a lot of money.

Zev 14y ago
But you could justify spending 4 weeks food on an experiment? Because you'll need that $100 to put an app on your device, as well.
- christiangenco 14y ago
  Ahh yes, that's not particularly fun either.
89a 14y ago
If you'd sat down and spent all that time on Obj-C you'd be coding away at it by now. Sometimes searching for an easy way out is a waste of time.
- christiangenco 14y ago
  Fair point.

ef4 14y ago

What annoys the crap out of me isn't objective C, it's XCode. This looks worth it just to have an XCode-free toolchain.

Morcane 14y ago

I would love to try this out, but a 100+ euro pricetag for evaluation is a bit steep (yeahyeah, I know, but hey...Jetbrains gives a 30 day eval version of their iOS IDE so why not RubyMotion?). Any chance on a (feature crippled) evaluation version?

funkyboy 14y ago

I am wondering is anybody asked for a debugger/stepper. Will a dev survive without those? Also, are you ready to write all the code behind xibs?