Thanks - that's helpful. You've confirmed a lot of what I suspected, and saved me some time and distraction.
Regards, Bryan On Oct 15, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Elliot Temple 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… >> >> 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/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacRuby-devel mailing list > MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org > http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
