From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2003-08-31T02:42:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Beginning to use FxRuby - help, please

john%johnknight.com@pop.business.earthlink.net wrote:

> Also, raainstsll does not work. For starters, the xml database is not
> populated and the YAML database has an old release of FXRuby. Is raainstall
> being maintained? Should I go to RubyForge? Where do I go for help?

I'd also like to know the status of raainstall. A few months ago I
thought it was actively maintained and the new de facto standard for
installing from the RAA. Now I'm not certain.

> I am thinking of going to wxWindows or GTK+ which ever will let me develop
> in Linux and deliver on M$. But I need a support community.

FXRuby should work fine. I don't *think* wxWindows (on Ruby) is mature
enough yet. Curt, correct me if I'm wrong. As for GTK+, I think it
works well in Ruby on *nix, but I'm not sure how well GTK+ works on
Windows. The last time I checked (years ago) it was spotty.

> Sorry if I seem impatient:=( I have lots of ideas for projects. I want to
> work in ruby and deliver anywhere. I need a development environment that
> allows me to produce GUI's and access databases I have been waiting for
> such an environment. I thought FXRuby was it but I am not sure anymore.
> I am hoping to find a support community.

You just found it. Lyle himself is incredibly helpful, and can steer
you to the mailing list and so on.

I find Fox in general a little painful... but it's the one I use most
often. Kind of like the old quote (from Winston Churchill?), "Democracy
is the worst system in the world, with the exception of all the others."

Take that not as a slam against anyone's favorite toolkit, but as a
statement that GUIs in general are a pain to program. Using verbal
methods to fully describe the look and behavior of a graphical system
will necessarily incur complexity and verbosity. (Consider that a
modern paraphrase of "A picture is worth a thousand words.")

Hal