Back with more questions: mono 2.4.x & IR 0.9.x

Ruby IronRuby
1

Hi Folks,

Since I hear such good things about the rate at which features are being
added to the project (and since it coincides with needing to write some
cross-platform UI code), I thought I’d give the new version a go.

Here’s my environment:
$ mono --version
Mono JIT compiler version 2.4.2.3 (tarball Mon Nov 23 08:34:29 GMT 2009)
Copyright (C) 2002-2008 Novell, Inc and Contributors.
www.mono-project.com
TLS: __thread
GC: Included Boehm (with typed GC)
SIGSEGV: altstack
Notifications: epoll
Architecture: amd64
Disabled: none

$ mono bin/ir.exe --version
IronRuby 0.9.2.0 on .NET 2.0.0.0

$ uname -a
Linux linna 2.6.24-25-generic #1 SMP Tue Oct 20 06:49:12 UTC 2009 x86_64
GNU/Linux

I’m having all kinds of trouble getting the examples to even run. When
I try any of them, I get complaints about not being able to load
libraries, e.g. the DiskUse demo:

$ mono …/…/bin/ir.exe app.rb
:0:in `require’: no such file to load – WindowsBase (LoadError)
from app.rb:16

…not to mention having all sorts of issues getting the command-line
tools to run in Linux due to environment issues that I don’t really
understand (and I’ve been a Linux user since 1993 and a UNIX user since
1990). It sure seems like there’s some environment magic that’s needed,
but I can’t figure out what it really is. Nothing that I’ve tried that
seemed like it should work did the trick.

Q: is there an up-to-date guide for getting IronRuby working with Mono
2.4 anywhere? Everything I could find with google seemed at least 2 yrs
old. There aren’t any obvious links from either the ironruby website or
from the mono site.

Clearly based on Jimmy’s OSCON 2009 post:
Jimmy Schementi > IronRuby at OSCON 2009: Mono, Moonlight, and scripting open source apps,
it should all be working swimmingly.

Apologies if this is a really dumb question.

For what I need to do at the moment, I need to quickly prototype some
small applications that need to work on Windows, Linux and OSX. From
what I’ve seen, .NET & Mono seem to be the only real choice for this at
the moment, but I’d prefer to not have to write C# code when I’m doing
the prototypes (plus I’ve lots of ruby library code that I’ve already
written for other purposes).

What’s the quickest way to get everything up and running (with some
examples of actually running stuff from the command line on Linux)?

Thanks in advance for your assistance. I’m looking forward to seeing
what I can do with IronRuby since I looked at it a few months ago. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

ast

Andrew S. Townley [email protected]
http://atownley.org

2

http://dlrci.colliertech.org/ironruby/

Those builds are done on a mono machine

The console is a bit wonky at this point on mono. I don’t know if it’s a
mono thing or an IronRuby thing but you can’t use arrow keys in the
console
or tab etc. It takes the characters just doesn’t interpret them.

To make something run on linux download one of the packages and extract
in a
folder, then add the bin path in that folder to your PATH env variable.

The thing is the demo you tried are WPF demo’s and they don’t work on
mono
because mono doesn’t implement that technology.

If you’re going cross-platform and you want a similar experience on all
platforms you’re probably looking at using Qt, GTK# or Winforms at this
as
GUI toolkit.
In about 8-10 months I guess silverlight 3 is a good option, and when
moonlight catches up to silverlight 4 then Silverlight is the only
choice
that makes sense (money and time wise) I guess for building
cross-platform
apps and providing the same experience on all of them.

IronRuby is the Ruby language on the .NET framework so if you’re new to
both
it can hurt and the msdn docs don’t yet show a ruby language tickbox so
it
will be of great help if you at least know how to read C# or VB.
I hope this helps you to get started, if not keep sending emails :slight_smile:

Met vriendelijke groeten - Best regards - Salutations
Ivan Porto C.
Blog: http://flanders.co.nz
Google Wave: [email protected]
Twitter: http://twitter.com/casualjim
Author of IronRuby in Action (http://manning.com/carrero)

3

Hi Ivan,

On Thu, 2009-11-26 at 09:04 +0100, Ivan Porto C. wrote:

http://dlrci.colliertech.org/ironruby/

Those builds are done on a mono machine

Thanks for the pointer to the other builds. I’ll give that a go later
today. I did notice the thing about the console (with the colors), but
from google, it seems that’s a Mono issue and not an IronRuby issue.

The console is a bit wonky at this point on mono. I don’t know if it’s
a mono thing or an IronRuby thing but you can’t use arrow keys in the
console or tab etc. It takes the characters just doesn’t interpret
them.

I occasionally use irb for quick tests, but most of the time, I just
write simple little scripts and run them with the main ruby interpreter.

To make something run on linux download one of the packages and
extract in a folder, then add the bin path in that folder to your PATH
env variable.

The thing is the demo you tried are WPF demo’s and they don’t work on
mono because mono doesn’t implement that technology.

It’s been a while since I did any C# development (pre-WPF), and that was
mostly command-line and library stuff. I did do a few WinForms things,
but not a lot.

Sorry for the confusion.

If you’re going cross-platform and you want a similar experience on
all platforms you’re probably looking at using Qt, GTK# or Winforms at
this as GUI toolkit.
In about 8-10 months I guess silverlight 3 is a good option, and when
moonlight catches up to silverlight 4 then Silverlight is the only
choice that makes sense (money and time wise) I guess for building
cross-platform apps and providing the same experience on all of them.

WinForms was my plan for the moment. Going the silverlight route is too
many layers of alpha for what I’m trying to do (my own stuff, IronRuby
and the UI toolkit would just be too much! :slight_smile:

IronRuby is the Ruby language on the .NET framework so if you’re new
to both it can hurt and the msdn docs don’t yet show a ruby language
tickbox so it will be of great help if you at least know how to read
C# or VB.
I hope this helps you to get started, if not keep sending emails :slight_smile:

Thanks for the help and the pointers. I would’ve done most of my C#
with .NET 1.1, but I’ve been using ruby pretty actively for about 5
years, including fighting with trying to use MRI and GTK+ on Linux for
the last couple of years and experiencing random crashes due to the
incompatible threading models.

Even if I have to use the WinForms package for the UI (which I vaguely
remember from doing some MFC work back in 99-01), at least there’s a
common, underlying runtime for all the bits that should play nicer
together than what I’ve been doing.

Ruby 1.9 isn’t an option for me because I have too many dependencies
that don’t seem to work without changes (based on a quick re-try of that
last night).

Again, thanks for all the help. That should be enough to get me up and
running, and Thibaut sent me a link to some WinForms/IronRuby examples
too. I’ll let you know if I have any more issues getting started.

Cheers,

ast

wrote:
$ mono --version

    I try any of them, I get complaints about not being able to
    tools to run in Linux due to environment issues that I don't
    with Mono
    
    written for other purposes).
    
    http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core

Ironruby-core mailing list
[email protected]
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core
–
Andrew S. Townley [email protected]
http://atownley.org

4

You can also look in my github account the samples for my book are
published
there.

I don’t have Webforms or Winforms samples there (except for the one
provided
by thibaut for his Magic DSL), because I declared those techs dead a few
years ago.

A GUI toolkit I want to give a try sometime in the future is clutter
Clutter Project – Have fun!.
It’s a .NET based OSS OpenGL GUI toolkit. But all those toolkits IMHO
are
really stop gaps until SL is mature enough and Moonlight gets to SL4.
(SL3
=> no rich-text editor which is used often in LOB apps, OOB mode is
still
sandboxed)

Met vriendelijke groeten - Best regards - Salutations
Ivan Porto C.
Blog: http://flanders.co.nz
Google Wave: [email protected]
Twitter: http://twitter.com/casualjim
Author of IronRuby in Action (http://manning.com/carrero)

5

On Thu, 2009-11-26 at 09:58 +0100, Ivan Porto C. wrote:

You can also look in my github account the samples for my book are
published there.

Thanks Ivan, I will.

I don’t have Webforms or Winforms samples there (except for the one
provided by thibaut for his Magic DSL), because I declared those techs
dead a few years ago.

I know what you mean, but sometimes when a technology’s declared “dead”
is when it becomes ubiquitous enough to be useful! :slight_smile:

A GUI toolkit I want to give a try sometime in the future is clutter
Clutter Project – Have fun!.
It’s a .NET based OSS OpenGL GUI toolkit. But all those toolkits IMHO
are really stop gaps until SL is mature enough and Moonlight gets to
SL4. (SL3 => no rich-text editor which is used often in LOB apps, OOB
mode is still sandboxed)

Yeah, that would be a problem for me. This is essentially LOB-ish.

Cheers,

ast

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 9:27 AM, Andrew S. Townley [email protected]
Thanks for the pointer to the other builds. I’ll give that a
> console or tab etc. It takes the characters just doesn’t
> To make something run on linux download one of the packages

    > all platforms you're probably looking at using Qt, GTK# or
    
    language
    about 5
    common, underlying runtime for all the bits that should play
    me up and
    ---
    <[email protected]>
    version a
    >                TLS:           __thread
    >         Linux linna 2.6.24-25-generic #1 SMP Tue Oct 20
    >         libraries, e.g. the DiskUse demo:
    I don't
    >         seemed like it should work did the trick.
    >         from the mono site.
    >         small applications that need to work on Windows,
    >         already
    forward to
    >         http://atownley.org
    > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core

Ironruby-core mailing list
[email protected]
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ironruby-core
–
Andrew S. Townley [email protected]
http://atownley.org