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RubyMotion Success Story: Cabify

hans_olo 14y ago
Hmm, I have used Cabify and it's a horribly slow application. Now I know why.
- javierhonduco 14y ago
  As far as I'm concerned, Rubymotion shoudn't decrease the performance of an app...
  - firlefans 14y ago
    Yup Rubymotion isn't interpreted, it's compiled file by file to LLVM bytecode, this negatively effects development speed but it means it runs (roughly) as fast as pure obj-c (or so they claim on the rubymotion site). We're using it at the moment to develop an app, it's great at keeping code DRY, debuggability on device kinda sucks atm though.
- thibaut_barrere 14y ago
  Given how RubyMotion works (not an interpreter unlike regular Ruby), if the app is slow (I didn't test!) then it's very likely not related to RubyMotion.
- cicloid 14y ago
  - "We hope to launch a new completely redesigned app in the next few weeks, as opposed to months!" It seems the app for common users is not the RubyMotion app.
- rebo 14y ago
  They are not using Rubymotion for their customer app yet.
- jcromartie 14y ago
  No, you don't. Of all the things I have against RubyMotion, performance is not one of them.
- batista 14y ago
  I call BS. Your other comment in the same thread does not mention you using Cabify at all -- it's a general slant against the company for using "unproven technology". And your account was created one hour ago, just to deliver these two negative comments here.
flatline3 14y ago
I, for one, am not looking forward to an influx of Rails engineers redefining the iOS development culture in their image. The lack of respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years of platform development is staggering, but not unexpected. They're rejecting everything from Interface Builder to the standard build tools, and adopting inferior web ideas wholesale -- such as attempting to style native UI with CSS. While it may be par for the course, I'd had hoped that our section of the engineering field would be immune to influence from the Rails community.
- jballanc 14y ago
  I really don't understand how the world of iOS development has become one of the most cloistered developer communities in recent memory. Is it the gold rush mentality, maybe? Seriously, some of the outright hostility I've seen in the iOS development community is breathtaking. Yes, there is a lot of money to be made in iOS development so, no, you probably don't need to practice community building in order to be successful...today. Regardless, your snide comment about "Rails engineers" reveals your own ignorance on the subject. There are plenty of software engineers that use Ruby but not Rails, and any developer who cannot use Ruby without Rails is unlikely to be of any threat to "redefine iOS development culture", since RubyMotion is not Rails. Edit: Also...since when have "hacker" and "respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years" ever had anything to do with each other? Take the "knowledge gained", evaluate it on its merits, and if you find it lacking, who cares over how many years it was gained?!? If you think you can do better, do so.
  - flatline3 14y ago
    > I really don't understand how the world of iOS development has become one of the most cloistered developer communities in recent memory. Is it the gold rush mentality, maybe? You must understand that the iOS development community has its roots in decades of engineering community, coming from NeXT, Mac OS and UNIX traditions. We're simply not interested in the subpar engineering that comes from the inexperienced web developers joining the gold rush. > Edit: Also...since when have "hacker" and "respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years" ever had anything to do with each other? Take the "knowledge gained", evaluate it on its merits, and if you find it lacking, who cares over how many years it was gained?!? If you think you can do better, do so. Which is why we've watched the Rails community re-invent the wheel repeatedly over the past 6 years, consistently rediscovering abandoned methodologies, and then rediscovering why those methodologies were abandoned. One of my favorite examples was the the breathless enthusiasm at the rediscovery of the (inefficient, abandoned) pure pre-fork model: http://tomayko.com/writings/unicorn-is-unix http://tomayko.com/writings/unicorn-is-unix Or, watching the extremely poor architecture of Rails waste vast troves of server CPU and RAM. Or any other of the hundreds (thousands?) examples of junior engineers ignoring history and re-inventing failed architectures that would not have been so broken if they looked at what came before with anything other than disdain.
jballanc 14y ago
Congrats to Mark on his success! For those who haven't had a chance to follow along, Mark has been a constant presence in the community and I'm glad to see his drive and willingness to take the initiative has paid off. His story is also a perfect example of why it is so important to get out, give talks, and participate in your local development communities, even if "local" doesn't overlap with "Silicon Valley" or "NYC".
- javierhonduco 14y ago
  That's a very good point to focus on. Thank you! ;)
- MarkVillacampa 14y ago
  Thank you Joshua! :)
- hans_olo 14y ago
  > His story is also a perfect example of why it is so important to get out, give talk Yep, bullshit con artsist style.
mmahemoff 14y ago
Just curious - are developers putting themselves at risk by revealing they're using RubyMotion? ie risk of being penalised in app store or possibly even banned if Apple's policy swung back to how it used to be. I assume there's no way to tell an app is RubyMotion by inspecting the UI, though maybe it's possible to tell from the binary?
- jballanc 14y ago
  You would have to be rather talented and put in a non-trivial amount of effort to tell a RubyMotion app from any other iOS app. A while back there was a conversation in IRC where one person was trying to do just that and kept coming up short... Edit: Also, "how it used to be" was a stupid, knee-jerk reaction to Adobe and caused significant consternation even within Apple (disclaimer: I was working at Apple at the time). Furthermore, considering that the single most recognizable "App Store" brand utilizes a non-trivial amount of Lua, there is essentially zero risk that things will go back to "how it used to be".
ylem 14y ago
How does cabify differ from uber? I haven't used either...
- macuenca 14y ago
  I haven't used Über, but the idea is exactly the same and the apps are very much alike. I live in Madrid, which is one of the cities where Cabify operates. I've used their service a couple of times and I can only recommend it. Looks like a good place to work and Mark Villa Camp, the guy mentioned in the article is a well known name in the Spanish tech scene. Is Cabify a copycat? Whatever, is a well executed idea and I wish they succeed.

Hmm, I have used Cabify and it's a horribly slow application. Now I know why.

javierhonduco 14y ago
As far as I'm concerned, Rubymotion shoudn't decrease the performance of an app...
- firlefans 14y ago
  Yup Rubymotion isn't interpreted, it's compiled file by file to LLVM bytecode, this negatively effects development speed but it means it runs (roughly) as fast as pure obj-c (or so they claim on the rubymotion site). We're using it at the moment to develop an app, it's great at keeping code DRY, debuggability on device kinda sucks atm though.
thibaut_barrere 14y ago
Given how RubyMotion works (not an interpreter unlike regular Ruby), if the app is slow (I didn't test!) then it's very likely not related to RubyMotion.
cicloid 14y ago
- "We hope to launch a new completely redesigned app in the next few weeks, as opposed to months!" It seems the app for common users is not the RubyMotion app.
rebo 14y ago
They are not using Rubymotion for their customer app yet.
jcromartie 14y ago
No, you don't. Of all the things I have against RubyMotion, performance is not one of them.
batista 14y ago
I call BS. Your other comment in the same thread does not mention you using Cabify at all -- it's a general slant against the company for using "unproven technology". And your account was created one hour ago, just to deliver these two negative comments here.

I, for one, am not looking forward to an influx of Rails engineers redefining the iOS development culture in their image. The lack of respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years of platform development is staggering, but not unexpected. They're rejecting everything from Interface Builder to the standard build tools, and adopting inferior web ideas wholesale -- such as attempting to style native UI with CSS. While it may be par for the course, I'd had hoped that our section of the engineering field would be immune to influence from the Rails community.

jballanc 14y ago
I really don't understand how the world of iOS development has become one of the most cloistered developer communities in recent memory. Is it the gold rush mentality, maybe? Seriously, some of the outright hostility I've seen in the iOS development community is breathtaking. Yes, there is a lot of money to be made in iOS development so, no, you probably don't need to practice community building in order to be successful...today. Regardless, your snide comment about "Rails engineers" reveals your own ignorance on the subject. There are plenty of software engineers that use Ruby but not Rails, and any developer who cannot use Ruby without Rails is unlikely to be of any threat to "redefine iOS development culture", since RubyMotion is not Rails. Edit: Also...since when have "hacker" and "respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years" ever had anything to do with each other? Take the "knowledge gained", evaluate it on its merits, and if you find it lacking, who cares over how many years it was gained?!? If you think you can do better, do so.
- flatline3 14y ago
  > I really don't understand how the world of iOS development has become one of the most cloistered developer communities in recent memory. Is it the gold rush mentality, maybe? You must understand that the iOS development community has its roots in decades of engineering community, coming from NeXT, Mac OS and UNIX traditions. We're simply not interested in the subpar engineering that comes from the inexperienced web developers joining the gold rush. > Edit: Also...since when have "hacker" and "respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years" ever had anything to do with each other? Take the "knowledge gained", evaluate it on its merits, and if you find it lacking, who cares over how many years it was gained?!? If you think you can do better, do so. Which is why we've watched the Rails community re-invent the wheel repeatedly over the past 6 years, consistently rediscovering abandoned methodologies, and then rediscovering why those methodologies were abandoned. One of my favorite examples was the the breathless enthusiasm at the rediscovery of the (inefficient, abandoned) pure pre-fork model: http://tomayko.com/writings/unicorn-is-unix http://tomayko.com/writings/unicorn-is-unix Or, watching the extremely poor architecture of Rails waste vast troves of server CPU and RAM. Or any other of the hundreds (thousands?) examples of junior engineers ignoring history and re-inventing failed architectures that would not have been so broken if they looked at what came before with anything other than disdain.

jballanc 14y ago

Congrats to Mark on his success! For those who haven't had a chance to follow along, Mark has been a constant presence in the community and I'm glad to see his drive and willingness to take the initiative has paid off. His story is also a perfect example of why it is so important to get out, give talks, and participate in your local development communities, even if "local" doesn't overlap with "Silicon Valley" or "NYC".

javierhonduco 14y ago
That's a very good point to focus on. Thank you! ;)
MarkVillacampa 14y ago
Thank you Joshua! :)
hans_olo 14y ago
> His story is also a perfect example of why it is so important to get out, give talk Yep, bullshit con artsist style.

mmahemoff 14y ago

Just curious - are developers putting themselves at risk by revealing they're using RubyMotion? ie risk of being penalised in app store or possibly even banned if Apple's policy swung back to how it used to be. I assume there's no way to tell an app is RubyMotion by inspecting the UI, though maybe it's possible to tell from the binary?

jballanc 14y ago
You would have to be rather talented and put in a non-trivial amount of effort to tell a RubyMotion app from any other iOS app. A while back there was a conversation in IRC where one person was trying to do just that and kept coming up short... Edit: Also, "how it used to be" was a stupid, knee-jerk reaction to Adobe and caused significant consternation even within Apple (disclaimer: I was working at Apple at the time). Furthermore, considering that the single most recognizable "App Store" brand utilizes a non-trivial amount of Lua, there is essentially zero risk that things will go back to "how it used to be".

ylem 14y ago

How does cabify differ from uber? I haven't used either...

macuenca 14y ago
I haven't used Über, but the idea is exactly the same and the apps are very much alike. I live in Madrid, which is one of the cities where Cabify operates. I've used their service a couple of times and I can only recommend it. Looks like a good place to work and Mark Villa Camp, the guy mentioned in the article is a well known name in the Spanish tech scene. Is Cabify a copycat? Whatever, is a well executed idea and I wish they succeed.