From: Omnifroodle <matt.overstreet@...>
Date: 2009-06-18T03:35:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby feasibility?

On Jun 16, 8:54 am, Dave Kubasiak <dave...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Good morning,
>
> I know just about zero about Ruby but the company I work for is doing
> some Ruby development and I need to eventually learn the language.
> There is a program re-write project I need to complete and I was
> wondering if Ruby would be appropriate for it.
>
> The app I need to write is a communication app.  It reads a list of
> devices from a database and uses a bank of modems/phone lines to call
> out and collect data from them at different times.  There are hundreds
> of devices so the app is always running, though it's idle periodically
> throughout the day.  It needs to have a GUI so someone can see at a
> glance what it's doing, and it needs to be multi-threaded.  It would
> most likely be running on Windows since that's the only GUI OS we
> currently have running (we have Solaris and Linux boxes but they're only
> console, not GUI).
>
> Would Ruby be appropriate for this task?  I've read that it can be
> sluggish and that GUI programming is somewhat lacking.  But I also don't
> know how old those comments were or how Ruby has progesses since they
> were made.  Or would something like Java, C#, etc, be better suited?
>
> Any input greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks in advance,
>   Dave
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

wxRuby and RubyScript2exe:

1) they work great in windows

2) they don't require a framework install (thanks to RubyScript2exe)

I've got decent experience in windows client development with .NET and
I switched completely to ruby when I found these two.

You might also consider having a worker app do the calling and update
the database, and a gui app that users can launch when they want to
see the status.

Still, it sounds like a web gui (and server side dialer app) still
beat the pants off a desktop app for this.

Good Luck,

-matt