From: Chris Morris <home@...>
Date: 2002-04-10T12:00:10+09:00
Subject: RE: Ruby as replacement for VB?

> [snip]
> > * ADO or ODBC interface library.
>
> WIN32OLE.new is roughly equivalent to VB's Server.createObject:
>
> require 'win32ole'
> connection = WIN32OLE.new( "ADODB.Connection" )

Just to second this, I've been using ADO recently via the win32ole and it's
worked fine for me. I've also used Ruby/ODBC (google for web site) and it
works well, too.

I've only started with FXRuby, but it looks like it should do what you need,
depending on how intensive your needs are. You won't have an easy-to-use
form designer like you'll get with VB, you'll be building GUIs from code,
which might break the ol' noggin' a bit at first. But the nice Rubyisms make
this work less of a hassle than it would be in VB itself (ie building a GUI
solely from code in VB).

Deployment might be a bit rougher, though rpkg can help (it's on the to-do
list to check out one day), but not too bad. You'll have to deploy the Ruby
install plus your source vs. your .exe and a ton of .dlls. :)

Chris