From: Marc Heiler Date: 2007-11-28T07:15:17+09:00 Subject: Re: "Why I Program In Ruby (And Maybe Why You Shouldn't)" "THAT is state of the art and would make defining most of the GUIs a wonderful and Rubyish process." There are many ruby bindings to gnome but while there are some nice apps, you dont really see a lot of breathtaking programs in it. There are simply too many limits. The dependency issue is not really problematic. On windows you can install those fat .exe' files and thats about it. I must know because I do it all the time on windows (I still look for ruby-automation to install these things but for now i do this manually, on windows ... windows is so annoying, on linux i just run a few ruby scripts and be done with it...) In a way, the process to build complex apps is to blame for the problem that there are not really VERY good AND big apps available in the ruby-gui world. I.e. it should be simple to do a ruby-gimp version, but what about the underlying library, or what if the supported widgets are not yet on par with what gimp uses, etc... It also takes a LOT of time ... research time too. Shoes addresses this build-up process by offering a great abstraction to this overall process. Claiming to remove cairo as part of a "solution" to a problem which does not really exist the way you wrote is like ... I don't know... rubbing your face against a wall and complaining that your face gets dirty and hurt in the process. "The standard library is the problem." I do not agree about "the" problem, but I would agree that there could be a some little improves on it, especially from docu side. Past when i looked at std lib, the docu was sometimes incomplete or not really useful (for me). Something like noobkit is what I like and i think this is a good step away from the static and ugly looking .html/rdoc combination. Or, you can find a mail where I thought that Ruby as language should get a stronger foothold on www aspects, just like PHP (and how php grew). But then again different people have different opinions anyway and altogether Ruby beats all the other languages out there easily for my needs. You also must acknowledge, that a better language, enables "stupid" people (like me) to build and do better (more sophisticated) stuff. AND IN YOUR FLAMES YOU DO NOT SUGGEST ANY ALTERNATIVE! This trolling is annoying. However, you raised some points that have a little truth in it... lets get on it "You get instantly dragged into installing extra native libraries and their bindings" I agree partially but even though others wrote this already: Ruby != Java And on Windows, where is the problem anyway... click-click-click INSTALLED. Did you look at how large java+netbeans is? This is insane man ... "Ruby is entirely unsuitable for GUI application development." BULLSHIT! Either you lie or are clueless. Don't get me wrong on it. I admit that there are problems. I started with ruby-gtk because of the wiki, and I have not regretted it in overall. Ruby-gtk fits most of my needs. I use it on windows too. I never had the need to use Tk and I am also not a mac user. For my linux and windows needs it is perfect, and EXACTLY the wiki was my reason to pick it. I am bad at learning so I need all the docu i can find, and i think i wrote around 300 more or less small apps with ruby-gtk (which is another reason why I will agree stating that something like shoes is wonderful to have. I hope shoes will rock) "Too much complexity and risks." I laugh about customers and their fears! Go Java, customers, embrace your favourite world! I use Ruby because I love it as a language. For me, all my apps work, and if they don't i can fix it instantly ;) The biggest stepping stone was never ruby as such, but always my lack of knowledge (and this is to a lot degree to be blamed on docu) Anyway, I know you are a troll and you deserve pointless flaming. But I accept some of your other points, these should not be dismissed too easily. So apologies if my tone is inappropriate. "All in all, Ruby could really shine. But I think it will never do that. " But still i have to say - you shine as a troll. Cheers! ;) -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.