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/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org
>> http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
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