[NMLUG] Ruby

[wlrobbi at gmail.com (w robbi)]

Your email reminds me of the classic "vi verses emacs" wars that seem
to surface on the web every once in a while.   I feel if you know a
language and it works for you, use it. The core concepts in
programming are in almost every language available.  Heck, I open an
excel file every once in a while and play pacman.  Why anyone wanted
to write pacman in that? Who knows? Perl can do everything I can do in
Ruby. Maybe even better?  When I needed to do a project, I found Ruby
to be the easiest to use.  I also had several friends that already
used the language.   Every language has its faults and its strengths.

Is ruby cross-platform?

Sort of. Ruby is not a much as python or perl. I find they focus on
making sure all code will work no-matter the OS.   Ruby took another
approach as I see it.  Ruby has features that you can only find on one
OS.  The language seems to allow a user to do what he or she wants on
the operating system that will allow it.  Threading for the longest
time never worked on windows machines and I can not call win32ole apps
on linux.  But most code works on either operating system. As long as
you avoid the obvious includes.
	Rails falls in this question. Rails is more a new method or concept
of programming than it is RUBY.   The people who developed it, just
happened to pick ruby as the core language.  I think they were smart
not to pick ADA, Fortran, or VMS/DCL?

Does ruby have a GUI interface?

Major, After loathing the look and feel of a few TK GUIs I made in
ruby,  I moved to the GUI interface called "FOX".  Under windows, Fox
works perfectly. Linux is a little trickier. Installing FOX is a
*itch. I would move to any Linux distribution, if they ever
pre-installed the FOX / ruby programs.   I'm a GUI lover. I always
make pretty GUIs for everything I do.  I try to make them as easy as
possible to use for any one.

What really sucks about Ruby is it does not have media functions.
Since the last time I searched I could not find any audio or video
codec resources that tie in to the scripting language.

Can Ruby scripts be compiled for speed?

Not that I know of. But besides starting up, Ruby is quite fast for
everything I need. I would rather leave ruby in script form so anyone
can modify and "steal" code as they need.  I have taken over to many
projects in the past that the production compiled application and the
source code handed to me are different.  Ruby does have a gem that
I've used that builds an exe so your app can just run without ruby
being installed on a windows machine.

 I've written Java code that emulates some (very few) of Ruby's
features-- w/ a little work, could Ruby's advantages be ported to
Java? [I realize there are some fundamental limitations here, but my
general thought is: could Java be made more Ruby-like?]

I only got one comment, No comment.



On 8/16/05, Sarang Gupta <_sarang_@sarangworld.com> wrote:
> Does anyone else agree w/ Kelly (w/ perhaps a little more verbosity?).
> I've poked around w/ Ruby (and it does seem neat, especially the alias,
> set_var, and missing_method features), but trying to find an excuse not to
> learn it.
> 
> My general feeling is that you can't become a proficient programmer if you
> keep switching languages, unless there's a good reason. I switched from
> awk to Perl, because Perl is *much* more powerful. I picked up a little
> PHP because it's more useful for web programming (I still think embPerl
> could've "become" PHP if they'd just started earlier). I like programming
> in Java because it's cross-platform ("double click the JAR file to run" is
> an instruction that even most Windows users can follow), and programmed in
> Tcl/TK before that because it was the "only easy way" to create a GUI at
> the time. There are also some programming languages I like (eg,
> Mathematica) that serve special purposes.
> 
> So, my big question is: why Ruby? What "quantum leap" does Ruby have over,
> say, Java and Perl? (this isn't flamebait and I *have* been reading the
> thread-- but I'm not seeing why people think Ruby is so much better than
> Java and Perl?).
> 
> My smaller questions:
> 
> % Is Ruby cross-platform in the sense that I can deliver an .exe or
> similar file to a Windows user?
> 
> % Ruby uses TK to create GUIs, and I'm guessing Windows doesn't ship w/
> TK-- again, is there an easy way to deliver GUI-based ruby scripts to
> Windows users, as(suming) Windows users are lazy and stupid?
> 
> % Can Ruby scripts be compiled for speed?
> 
> % I've written Java code that emulates some (very few) of Ruby's
> features-- w/ a little work, could Ruby's advantages be ported to Java? [I
> realize there are some fundamental limitations here, but my general
> thought is: could Java be made more Ruby-like?]
> 
> --
> Sincerely, Sarang Gupta (_sarang_@sarangworld.com)
> Backup Emails: saranghome@softhome.net, sarangorama@gmail.com
> 
> On Sat, 13 Aug 2005, kelly wrote:
> 
> > Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:40:59 -0600
> > From: kelly <kwilson@swcp.com>
> > Reply-To: New Mexico Linux Users Group Mail List <nmlug@nmlug.org>
> > To: New Mexico Linux Users Group Mail List <nmlug@nmlug.org>
> > Cc: Don@silver-Lynx.com
> > Subject: Re: [NMLUG] Ruby
> >
> > I'll side with the Perl folk.  Ruby may be cool but Perl is my atomic-chainsaw
> > of choice.
> >
> > --
> > Kelly
> >
> >
> >
> > havoc wrote:
> > > Don Wilde wrote:
> > >
> > >>Have been doing some good work with Ruby these days. Anybody else out
> > >>there as impressed as I am? I just bought a book about Rails and
> > >>haven't started it, but the core Ruby language is so much clearer than
> > >>Perl that in a comparison I'd have to call Perl a has-been except for
> > >>CPAN. Thoughts?
> > >
> > >
> > > HERETIC! Get a rope!
> > >
> > > ....
> > >
> > > or not.
> > >
> > > I've only glance casually at Ruby. I treat it like I've treated PHP --
> > > flavor of the day. I always go back to one scoop of chocolate chip, one
> > > scoop mint-chocolate chip, in a cup. Perl does that.
> > >
> > > Maybe I'm a Luddite?
> > >
> > > jody
> > _______________________________________________
> > NMLUG mailing list
> > NMLUG@nmlug.org
> > http://www.nmlug.org/mailman/listinfo/nmlug
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NMLUG mailing list
> NMLUG@nmlug.org
> http://www.nmlug.org/mailman/listinfo/nmlug
>