From: Chad Perrin Date: 2011-04-15T04:16:55+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby for beginners (was: Re: Hello) --Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 01:45:01AM +0900, Phillip Gawlowski wrote: > On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Chad Perrin wrote: > > > > I think this actually applies *more* to BSD Unix users than Linux-based > > system users, on average. >=20 > IOW: BSD users are technologically savvy, correct? Not that I > misunderstand what you wanted to say. More to the point, there are more users of Linux-based systems who are not so savvy, thanks to the newbie outreach of distributions like PCLinuxOS and Mint. >=20 > Any project has manpower constraints, and the easier a Beginning Ruby > package is to maintain, the more time can be spent on making it an > excellent experience for newcomers. And I value the latter part higher > than any sort of "purity" native packages can provide. Yeah -- my main concern with using JRuby is the requirements on the user side and the potential issues with more, and more complex, components of the package that might have issues. A few users having problems can produce a lot of "Why doesn't this just work?" noise. > > > > I think this "look and feel of the OS" thing is heavily, wildly > > overstated much of the time. =A0Look at the Chromium browser -- it has > > taken the approach of looking kinda out-of-place on *every* operating > > system, and it ended up being about the best looking of all the major > > browsers. >=20 > And Chrom[e|ium]'s market share comes mostly at the expense of Firefox. >=20 > Native look and feel is important simply because that's what a user is > already used to, and knows how to navigate. Like I said, I think that's blown way the hell out of proportion. Of course, I was thinking of MS Windows. Apple MacOS X users tend to care a lot more about that kind of thing, to the point people have actually made particular Mac purchases for the purpose of matching their drapes. > > > > That's not to say that GTK is pretty. =A0It's not. =A0I think something > > more simple and elegant, without big ugly gray buttons and the like, > > would be nicer. =A0Still, I don't know that blending in with the > > default widget set of the OS is as important as people seem to think, > > especially for something like this. >=20 > And we can argue this until the cows come home. I'm not hell bent on > providing native look and feel, but it's a very nice bonus to have. >=20 > Though, it'd be a secondary concern, I think. Bells and whistles are > nice, but not necessarily required. That's pretty much my point. > > > > I haven't tried yet; can interactive_editor be made to work on MS > > Windows? =A0If so, I don't think we need to focus on picking an editor > > that can execute code for first-timers. =A0Keep it simple; use the > > default editor for the platform, if you can get away with it. >=20 > Ideally, yes. And I have no idea about interactive_editor, nor am I > good enough to hack any internals of it, if necessary, however. It's actually a really simple bit of code. I plan to check it on Win7 at some point, and if it can't be set up to run Notepad with surprising ease, I'm going to see if I can figure out why not -- and maybe fix it. > > > > If you're going to bundle an editor with it, you might as well focus > > on creating a complete IDE install. >=20 > Wouldn't that go against the goals of simplicity, avoiding to overload > a beginner? Would be a fully fledged IDE be necessary to learn Ruby? An IDE can have a simple interface. They don't all have to look like Eclipse, NetBeans, or Visual Studio. Actually, I think it would be better to do without an IDE -- but also to do without pushing an editor on the user, especially when there's an editor already on the system with which the user might already be familiar. > > > > I don't think syntax highlighting is really a major concern here, > > unless you're going to bundle tutorials that refer to the colors to > > point out "parts of speech" in Ruby. =A0I think more important concerns > > are things like whether it can handle all three major newline types > > (Mac, Unix, Windows) and whether it uses a monospace font by default. > > Not auto-correcting what it thinks are typos is a *huge* concern, > > too. >=20 > That'd depend on the tutorials provided. But I think that syntax > highlighting makes easier to see what's what, than the monospaced > gibberish that would be Uh . . . since when is monospace "gibberish"? Variable-width fonts are *awful* for code editing. --=20 Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] --Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAk2nRRsACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKWLMgCfXKJ+MmmNEZxbapgsmkZeLKoC s5kAoKp5ye1SPzMTGkUyR8ugnnV0xy0m =k+Aa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a--