RubyMotion - Ruby for iOS

Post by malyk » Thu, May 03, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

spacemanaki wrote: post #87

sjtgraham wrote: post #32

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 be…

Forgive my ignorance of iOS, but do the current Objective-C based tools deliver "An interactive shell [...] for introspection, live coding and debugging" ? If RubyMotion can actually deliver a real first-class REPL that works, that would be a pretty huge deal. Lack of a REPL is the biggest reason why I dislike mobile (Android) development.

Post by coffee » Thu, May 03, 2012, 8:18 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #89

coffee wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed is what you're missing. Not to denigrate you or your statement, and yes Objective-C is not that hard to learn, but it comes down to speed. If I've never programmed in Objective-C and if I'm experienced in Ruby my time from concept to live iPhone app can be FAR quicker by using the tools/language I'm already familiar with (regardless of which tools/language). Remove the concept of learning a new language, a new…

Compared to learning Cocoa (Touch), Objective-C is really nothing — especially since to use MacRuby you have to learn a bunch of kinda-awkward hacks they've stuck on top of Ruby to make it compatible with Objective-C (e.g. the "def foo(bar, baz:quux)" syntax and Pointers). It's a very simple language. Unless you are exceptionally bad at learning syntax, you're really not saving yourself a whole lot of time.

Post by malyk » Thu, May 03, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

conradev wrote: post #99

randomdata wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that really the difference between something like: def animate UIView.begin_animation yield UIView.commit_animation end animate do # Do something end and: void animate(void (^block)(void)) { [UIView beginAnimation]; block(); [UIView commitAnimation]; } animate(^ { // Do something }); Which to my eye are pretty much exactly the same. In fact, UIView already provides a similar method built into the API. Anyway, I…

> UIView already provides a similar method built into the API. Yeah, it's actually much, much simpler to do it in Objective-C in this case. [UIView animateWithDuration:0.5f animations:^{ // Do something }];

Post by jballanc » Thu, May 03, 2012, 8:26 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #85

jballanc wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find the difference between working with Cocoa APIs in Obj-C vs Ruby is that it's much easier in Ruby to turn what you've learned into a simple, boiled-down, easier to digest set of helper methods/objects/modules. For example, in using the RubyMotion beta, after I understood the UIView animation flow, I created a helper method using "yield" to do the actual animation. If I were working in Obj-C, it wou…

Isn't that really the difference between something like: def animate UIView.begin_animation yield UIView.commit_animation end animate do # Do something end and: void animate(void (^block)(void)) { [UIView beginAnimation]; block(); [UIView commitAnimation]; } animate(^ { // Do something }); Which to my eye are pretty much exactly the same. In fact, UIView already provides a similar method built into the API. Anyway, I…

    def animate(*args)
      UIView.begin_animation
      yield(*args)
      UIView.commit_animation
    end

    animate(myButton, &buttonAnimateBlockFromSomewhereElse)
    animate(myView, myOtherView, &genericAnimateBlockFromSomewhereElseWithTwoArgs)
    animate do
      # Do something locally ignoring args
    end

Post by robomartin » Thu, May 03, 2012, 8:29 PM UTC