From: David Masover <ninja@...>
Date: 2011-01-23T14:31:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Totally lost in learning Ruby

On Saturday, January 22, 2011 10:44:56 pm Hilary Bailey wrote:
> I was under the impression that after having some programing
> language skilss and with some training I would be able to put together a
> # of applications and build a program computer program. I thought that
> just like how individuals could use some of Apple's apps, put them
> together then build a game, I believed that eventually this could be
> done with Ruby and its supportive/compatible applications.

I'm not sure quite what you mean here.

If you mean create a brand-new app from scratch using something like Apple's 
Xcode tools, and then having a standalone app (without forcing people to 
install Ruby), there are options for that. I haven't ever had to do this, but 
the project that looks the coolest for this purpose is Rawr 
(http://rawr.rubyforge.org/).

If you mean take several existing apps and mash them together into a new app, 
that really depends which apps you're talking about. It could be a five minute 
job of writing the appropriate glue code, essentially snapping stuff together 
like legos, or it could be a truly impossible task, like trying to attach an 
aircraft carrier to a 747 and make a useful vehicle out of it when you don't 
have access to the blueprints of either.

For what you described:

"I am a school teacher trying to create an education database software for 
administrators and teachers which will hold educational institutions 
accountable for the performance of their school district."

I'm guessing you mean the former -- you're wanting to build something from 
scratch, and you were just wanting to know how to actually get an app out of 
it, right?

I'd also imagine that this sort of thing would make more sense as a web app. 
The advantages of that approach would be that you don't have to create an 
installer and make sure it installs and runs properly on every single person's 
computer, you just need to make sure they have a decent web browser. 
Basically, you'd get to install whatever OS and software you want on whatever 
server(s) it runs on, and to everyone else, it's just a website.

The main disadvantage is that it would be a _lot_ more of a learning curve -- 
you'd want to know at least HTML and CSS, if not also HTTP (easy) and 
JavaScript, in addition to Ruby.

> Now facing this reality, would it help if I used Linux instead of
> Windows 7?

Maybe.

Ruby definitely seems designed to run on a Unix of some sort, so if you want 
to make the Ruby part easy on yourself, some sort of Linux would help. So 
would BSD, OS X, even Solaris.

But learning an entirely new OS at the same time as you learn to program 
sounds like a daunting task.