Alex, Thanks for taking the time to reply. You've confirmed that my plan for world domination makes sense, and it's always good to have a little extra confidence.
Regards, Bryan On Oct 15, 2011, at 10:23 PM, Alex Heaton wrote: > I'm a ruby developer learning the cocoa ropes at the moment, so > hopefully my thoughts are useful here: > > Ruby isn't actually a replacement for objective-c. In the sense that > you can't get through making an app with just ruby knowledge, it's > going to take a lot of working with c too, even if it's just reading > the docs and working out APIs. > Maybe you could try diving into the objective-c side of things > initially and learn ruby separately at the same time. After your first > couple of learning apps, switch to using MacRuby, then you'll > experience with ruby on its own and also have some idea how both ways > work. > > Using that approach I've been able to get by with relatively little actual > coding in Obj-c, but I've still needed to learn a working knowledge of it. > > Hope that helps, > Alex > > On 16 Oct 2011, at 01:33, Elliot Temple <c...@curi.us> 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�c >>> >>> 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 _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel