Ehm, sorry. I didn't notice the "upcoming". So it's not yet released but soon to be. (Is there any way to modify the title?)
MacRuby 0.6 Released
11–14 of 14 posts
Re: MacRuby 0.6 Released
#12> In MacRuby, all Ruby classes and objects are actually Objective-C classes and objects. There is no need to create costly proxies, convert objects, and cache instances. A Ruby object can be cast (toll-free) at the C level as an Objective-C object. The Ruby VM can also handle incoming Objective-C objects without conversion.
> In MacRuby, the primitive Ruby classes (e.g., String, Array, and Hash) have been re-implemented on top of their Cocoa equivalents (respectively, NSString, NSArray, and NSDictionary). As an example, all strings in MacRuby are Cocoa strings, so they can be passed directly to underlying C or Objective-C APIs. It is also possible to call any method of the String interface on any Cocoa string, subclass Objective-C methods, etc.
Interesting. Anyone used macruby, and would like to share experiences.
1. How is the learning curve for a ruby programmer ?
2. Are using the String and other core classes just the same as ruby, or more difficult / cumbersome.
3. Can you reuse code from pure ruby apps, or does this re-implementation cause issues/problems.
Re: MacRuby 0.6 Released
#13> In MacRuby, all Ruby classes and objects are actually Objective-C classes and objects. There is no need to create costly proxies, convert objects, and cache instances. A Ruby object can be cast (toll-free) at the C level as an Objective-C object. The Ruby VM can also handle incoming Objective-C objects without conversion. > In MacRuby, the primitive Ruby classes (e.g., String, Array, and Hash) have been re-implemen…
1. How is the learning curve for a ruby programmer ?
None. MacRuby is an implementation of Ruby 1.9. A very fast Ruby implementation, but, not a completely new language thats only similar. HotCocoa is a gem. A very useful gem that should be the first thing you install, but, a gem.
2. Are using the String and other core classes just the same as ruby, or more difficult / cumbersome.
Just as easily.
3. Can you reuse code from pure ruby apps, or does this re-implementation cause issues/problems.
Sure. Go for it. It is Ruby, after all. Just with an optional gem to access another framework, in this case, Cocoa.
Re: MacRuby 0.6 Released
#14Could someone tell me what I would do using macruby. I am a ruby programmer on a Mac. What kind of apps could i write ? Are these essentially GUI apps which otherwise i would write using Objective C or Cocoa (i assume its a standalone language) or QT, GTK etc. So does this allow me to write apps that have the Mac L&F ?
You can write native Cocoa apps with MacRuby that have Mac Look and Feel, with better than acceptable performance. There are clean, high-level Ruby wrappings of UIKit classes, see HotCocoa: http://macruby.com/hotcocoa.html , although it's not clear to me how extensive this part of MacRuby is.
Just to nitpick, its AppKit, not UIKit. UIKit is on the iPhone, where, sadly, MacRuby isn't available.