From: Matt Gushee <mgushee@...>
Date: 2002-09-27T03:19:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby/Tk or mod_ruby or what ??

On Fri, Sep 27, 2002 at 02:43:26AM +0900, GBanschbach@sandata.com wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
>      I am writing to ask if someone among the Ruby user base can address an
> issue for me.   I have begun to review Ruby after learning Java/Swing.
> I found Java to be good enough, but alot of code to get things done.   It
> was not too painfull to learn.   I read 3 books on Java / SWING and came
> away able to write basic apps with a GUI.   I decided that I wanted
> something simpler, and cleaner to use.

And something that will run with less than a gigabyte of memory, maybe?
(sorry ... for some reason I just can't pass up a chance to mention
Java's bloatedness)

> that I made some simple Tcl/Tk gui's before,  I would use Tk again. Fine.
> But then I find out that the "interface" to Tk is very
> different........8-(.      Then I start to look for docs on how to use it
> ..... you know,  like a tutorial.
>        I apologize in advance - a good tutorial is not a small project....
> but  the "tutorials"  for Ruby/Tk are SAD.    In fact, it would be more
> accurate to say that there aren't any.   Maybe I should look at using some
> sort of  ruby-to-web-browser interface...  But to tell someone to "go read
> a Perl/Tk book"  is  doing Ruby a disservice.   Some people will think
> "....I might as well use Perl then".    Below is an approximation of what I
> think would be a help.     If some of you more experienced with Ruby/Tk,
> maybe we can band together and put out the beginings of a
> tutorial......like what is below:

I'm interested in working on this--in fact I made a start at writing one
myself--though I was aiming at a bit more advanced level, because I
thought the Tk chapter in the pickaxe book was a good introduction. But
perhaps a raw-beginner tutorial would be useful, too.

Now I have to confess that I haven't done a lot of work with Ruby/Tk per
se, because I'm fairly new to Ruby, but I have been working with Tk in
its Tcl and Python incarnations (mostly the latter) for 4 years or so.
I'm also now the maintainer of the Ruby/Tk Demos package; the former
maintainer, Jonathan Conway, suggested to me that they might make a good
basis for a tutorial. I'm undecided about that. For one thing, I find
their look and feel to be very "old school"--that's a purely intuitive
statement that just popped into my head, so don't ask me to explain--but
I find them a bit ugly. I guess that means it's up to me to make them
less ugly ;-).  They're also designed to showcase the capabilities of
the toolkit, which is a somewhat different problem from teaching people
how to program with it.

So anyway, I agree there should be a tutorial, and I'm more likely to
actually do something about it if I don't have to do all the work
myself. What role would you see yourself taking on this project?

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/