I would like to see Laurent and Hipbyte offer a paid version of MacRuby with the same pricing structure as RubyMotion. I'd buy it...
-- Shaun On Thursday, 16 May, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Mark Villacampa wrote: > I'm a longtime RubyMotion user, and MacRuby user before that. I want to share > my view as to what is the current status of MacRuby and what can happen in > the future. > > The momentum around MacRuby has been inexistent for almost a year and a half. > That is, since Laurent Sansonetti (the original creator of MacRuby) left > Apple, and that left the project without maintainers who were being paid to > work on it. Only Watson and a couple other maintainers have been doing > maintenance work and fixing a couple of bugs. > > Since nobody is being paid to maintain it, and (AFAIK) there is no > company/individual whose main/critical systems depended on MacRuby, nobody > has taken over the project. This is pretty much a chicken-egg situation. > > That said, a year ago, Laurent launched RubyMotion, a product based on > MacRuby which introduces many new features, such as an ARC based memory > model, and iOS support (dropping OSX support). Just a few days ago, in the > first anniversary of RubyMotion, they introduced OSX support. > > Rubymotion is not open source, and the license costs 200$, plus an annual > renewal fee of 99$. Two reasons that people sometimes argue for not investing > in RM are: > > - "It's closed source, it might disappear at any moment": Actually, > RubyMotion is probably more likely to stay in the long term than MacRuby was > at the beginning. Despite Apple being a huge company, MacRuby was kind of an > experiment that they could kill at any moment. For HipByte (the company > behind Rubymotion), Rubymotion is its main product and the one that pays its > employees. They are way more interested in watching RM succeed than Apple was > in watching MacRuby succeed. > > - "It's too expensive": for playing around or releasing a pet project or free > app that is not one of your ways of income, that might be the case. However, > for a company or individual that wants to develop a product from which they > hope to get some revenue, that price is ridiculous. I've seen PHP libraries > for creating web forms more expensive than RubyMotion (nothing against those > libraries). We're talking about a static compiler and a whole toolchain for > developing iOS apps. If you're a student and want to play around with > RubyMotion, there is a student discount available (send them an email for > more information). > > So my conclusion is: If you want to develop OSX applications and you liked > MacRuby, invest in getting a RubyMotion license, you probably won't be > disappointed. > > Mark. > > > On Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 8:01 PM, Christopher S Martin wrote: > > > They recently added support for OS X to rubymotion: > > http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/49943751398/rubymotion-goes-2-0-and-gets-os-x-support-templates > > That said, since rubymotion is (I believe) based off of macruby with some > > additions specifically around static compilation of apps, I don't know if > > the issues around GC/ARC would be any better in rubymotion on OS X, as I've > > only used it for iOS. > > > > > > > > On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Jeff Dyck <fsjj...@gmail.com > > (mailto:fsjj...@gmail.com)> wrote: > > > Just wanted to add a ditto to this - I'm looking at migrating some old > > > AppleScript Studio projects to MacRuby - my initial testing about a year > > > ago was great, but it seems the stability of MacRuby as a development > > > platform is in question to me at least... I've already been abandoned by > > > AppleScript Studio, don't really want to have to go through relearning a > > > new language and migrating projects a third time. > > > > > > I'm seeing a few comments on RubyMotion - does that work for developing > > > OS X projects as well? I was under the impression that was for iOS only, > > > but I can't say I've looked into it much. > > > > > > Jeff > > > > > > On May 16, 2013, at 10:40 AM, Michael Shantzis <mich...@shantzis.com > > > (mailto:mich...@shantzis.com)> wrote: > > > > > > > Hello all (and especially Carolyn), > > > > > > > > I just want to say that I have the same question, specifically > > > > regarding the > > > > GC/ARC issue. > > > > > > > > The context in which this came up was very revealing. I had been > > > > developing a > > > > fairly complex Cocoa project (ARC enabled) and decided that I had to > > > > add some tests. > > > > Using MacRuby seemed like the natural solution. I quickly noticed, > > > > though, that I > > > > couldn't. > > > > > > > > Is there still any momentum behind MacRuby? Is there any solution to > > > > the issue > > > > of mixing it with ARC? I really hope the answer to these two questions > > > > is "yes." > > > > > > > > Thank you, > > > > Michael Shantzis > > > > > > > > > > > > On May 16, 2013, at 8:32 AM, Carolyn Ann Grant > > > > <carolyn.ann.gr...@gmail.com (mailto:carolyn.ann.gr...@gmail.com)> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > >> Hi, I've got a question about the future of MacRuby. I like it, and > > > >> have started working on a project or two using it, but I've been > > > >> reading about GC and ARC, Ruby 2.0, RubyMotion and so on, and wonder > > > >> where MacRuby is going? I'm quite concerned because I've put a good > > > >> amount of time into my MacRuby projects. > > > >> > > > >> I wish I had the knowledge and skill to help with MacRuby - I really > > > >> do like it! - but unfortunately I don't. I also don't want to invest a > > > >> lot of further time in MacRuby if it's not going anywhere. (And I > > > >> really can't spare the $200 it would take to buy RubyMotion.) > > > >> > > > >> I know this comes across as a bit impertinent, but I really would like > > > >> to know what's happening with MacRuby development. Thanks! > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > > >> MacRuby-devel mailing list > > > >> MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org > > > >> (mailto:MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org) > > > >> https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macruby-devel > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > MacRuby-devel mailing list > > > > MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org > > > > (mailto:MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org) > > > > https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macruby-devel > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > MacRuby-devel mailing list > > > MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org > > > (mailto:MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org) > > > https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macruby-devel > > > > _______________________________________________ > > MacRuby-devel mailing list > > MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org > > (mailto:MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org) > > https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macruby-devel > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacRuby-devel mailing list > MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org (mailto:MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org) > https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macruby-devel > >
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