From: david@...
Date: 2005-08-02T22:46:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Factors to consider for choosing Ruby?

Cit�t Brad Wilson <dotnetguy@gmail.com>:

> However, I will rarely choose Ruby to make GUI applications, 
> mostly because I'm not familiar with any of the typical GUI toolkit bindings
> 
> (like Gtk).
> 

Eww, Gtk ;P My quirk is mainly the fact wxRuby isn't quite up to speed with
lessay wxPython, and all the other toolkits are guilty of my pet peeve -
emulating widgets even when native ones are available. Which always ends up in
a plethora of problems, ranging from looking incredibly ugly (and yes, that
matters a lot) to rendering badly - text overflowing when the person who tried
to recreate the native look-and-feel sort of didn't think someone would ever
change the default font size.

Otherwise, I wouldn't say scripting languages are any unsuited to GUI work. The
other day I was thinking of making a sample solution for an introductory OOP
course I'm doing in Java / SWT, and I gave up an hour later to switch to Python
and wx, which ended up looking nice and purdy and native on XP as a bonus.

Well, that concludes the rant'n'rave portion, now to my two cents more to the
topic at hand.

I'd say a very important factor is knowing the target environment. The problem
with using a script-ish language is the distribution. A script interpreter is a
very serious dependency, and you can't go the straightforward way you'd use
with C++. E.g. for a Windows environment, compiling in the comfort of your IDE
and having the odd DLL in the working directory of the app.

Bundling the whole interpreter along is a workable, but very clumsy solution
for
that, and it's clumsy for more than one app. The other way is asking the end
users to install Ruby, but that's half-impossible to get past your neighborhood
manager in corporate scenarios, and you have to remember to package the
external libraries you use along.

Should a Rite emerge and have some simple invocation API, things might get
easier, especially with a way to distribute the Ruby core "batteries excluded".
Gods know, if I'm bored enough, I might hack up a standalone distribution
packager then.

David
(ikkle newbie in disguise)