I’ve seen a few patches go in regarding compatibility with 1.9. I’ve
started a home project using Ruby Gnome 2 and wondered whether I should
try using 1.9 for it.
I’m an experienced developer. C++/Java and the last few years in Ruby on
Rails but I’ve not used Gnome before and I’ve not done GUI development
for a while. I’ve got some concepts to (re)learn but if it works having
the extra speed and future proof of 1.9 not to mention the thrill of a
cutting edge version may be worth the investment.
I’m working on a new style of source code editor. Probably won’t go
public for a year so I’m thinking it might be worth it. The only issues
(so far besides Gnome 2 issues) are RSpec compatiblity and being
installed alongside 1.8.
Thoughts?
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Phil T.
[email protected] wrote:
Thoughts?
Apart from being in the same boat as you? 
Actually, if I were to list my priorities of what I need
they would be the following (in order):
- Easy to install current build for Windows
- 1.9 Compatibility
- Easy to install current build for Mac OSX
At the moment, the current bindings give me
all the functionality I need (and more). It’s these
rather tiresome issues that I really desparately need
for my application.
However, as they say, it’s free software, so what am
I doing? 
I may be wrong, but don’t I think any of these
features will be done in the near future unless we get
some motivated volunteers to do it. Realistically, I
don’t have time to volunteer, though 
(I wish I
did…)
MikeC
Ah that is a pain. Being on Ubuntu I don’t have that issue. At least for
Gnome installation anyway. Although I’ve noticed the gtksourceview lib
is a bit behind on ruby bindings but I’ve decided not to use it as it’s
not flexible enough for my needs. 1.9 looks pretty easy to install
(apt-get install ruby1.9 !) but I’m not sure how 1.8 and 1.9 work on the
same machine.
My main focus is on Linux at the moment as that’s what I use and that’s
where editors are in limited supply. At least the kind I’m used to.
I’d worry about getting your app to a usable point first. You never know
support for those platforms could improve in the future. There are some
guys out there that are proactively supporting Windows and Mac OS is
pretty popular with Ruby devs these days. I’m sure it’ll improve over
time.
So have you played with Gnome on 1.9?
I’m also on Ubuntu, but I’m trying to get my software used
by the school I’m working in (I initially wrote software
to help me learn Japanese, but now I want to focus on
helping my Japanese students learn English). Unfortunately
Windows is the primary platform and OS X the secondary.
I don’t think any of my students use linux (or will in
the near future). So I’m in a bit of a dilema…
I’ve run 1.8 and 1.9 on the same machine. I ran into
no problems. But it was quite a while ago. As you
mentioned, the lack of rspec is a deal breaker for me
with respect to 1.9. But, assuming someone is
working to fix that, the next is Gtk (and Pango,
I guess). I really want 1.9 because I want to get
a start on working with the new String library (1.8’s
is so broken in some places). Also, if I can get
just a bit more speed and memory performance
there are a few more things I can add to my program.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to work on getting
1.9 working with Gnome. However, I’m sorely tempted
to start working packaging the latest Ruby-Gnome on
Windows… I just don’t want to do it since I hate
working in Windows and I don’t want to become the
expert on it 
But if nobody does it in the next month
or two, I’ll be forced to either do that or switch widget
sets… My aversion to Windows is so strong that I’m
actually considering the latter…
Anyway, to stay on topic, I don’t think anyone is seriously
working on 1.9 integration at the moment (correct me if
I’m wrong!). It might actually be a fun little project so
if you’re tempted, I’d say go for it!
MikeC
Phil T. wrote:
I’ve seen a few patches go in regarding compatibility with 1.9. I’ve
started a home project using Ruby Gnome 2 and wondered whether I should
try using 1.9 for it.
…
Have you tried Open Komodo (http://www.openkomodo.com/). But be careful
there are two products: (1) Komodo EDI, and (2) Komodo Edit. Komodo Edit
is free, and it is a very decent editor.
As far as Ruby GTK+ is concerned, I believe it is the most promising GUI
for Ruby, and hopefully it will become the GUI of choice for most open
software enterprises on all platforms. However it is rather immature at
the moment. There are many issues with Ruby-GNOME2 and Ruby 1.9. With
GNOME2 everybody seems to be stuck with Ruby 1.8 for a while. I am not
aware if the latest release of 1.9.1 fixed any of the problems. I hope
things will get better in the not so distant future. However there
definitely are grey areas particularly related to vector graphic, canvas
and even Pango, that need a lot of fixing and even additional
development before we will have a true Ruby graphical environment.
Nevertheless, I do believe that GTK+ is the right choice when it comes
to which GUI to learn for Ruby, mostly because it is the best bet to
eventually achieve platform transparency!
As far as Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 go, I can testify to the fact that the two
incarnations can run absolutely without any problems side by side.
Though GNOME2 is designed so it would also compile safely into either
environment without obscuring the other, due to its immaturity, I shied
away from such a scenario, at least until people here will start posting
encouraging comments about the possibility of a successful marriage
between 1.9 and GNOME2.
Hope this was helpful for now, and warned you about the potential traps
you may fall in if you assumed things were in a better shape than they
truly are.
Good luck,
Torli
Yes I’ve tried many editors and IDEs. KE had some issues for me. I think
it was some issue with fonts not displaying correctly and it felt clunky
and slow although that could have been Netbeans. I use gedit at the
moment. It’s pretty close to what I want but it’s still missing some
basic functionality that the plug-ins just can’t seem to get right. I’ve
so few editors that seem to get regex multi-file search and replace
right. It also just bombs out from time to time which isn’t very nice. I
thought about fixing the plugin issues as it’s only Python but this
would have only got me half way to where I wanted to be. I want to add
some tight features to support testing and Rails so thought that having
the full editor at my disposal was a good way forward.
It’s a saturated market I know but there is always room for innovation
and advancement and if it doesn’t work out I’ll have learnt a lot in the
process!
As for GTK+ it’s been a pretty pleasent experience so far. Some of the
documentation is a little sparse for Ruby but a combination of digging
in the standard GTK+ docs and playing in irb and a few test scripts
sorts out any confusion. Much less painful than my Win32 C++ days!
Thanks for the information. I’ll probably stick with 1.8 for now but
will keep an eye on developments and if anyone out there has some
success with Gnome and 1.9 we’d love to hear about it. If I do get the
chance to test it out I’ll be sure to post my findings. No promises
though.
Some of the documentation is a little sparse for Ruby
but a combination
Yes but in most situations, this list here is a great supplement
whenever one has a question. 
Marc H. wrote:
Some of the documentation is a little sparse for Ruby
but a combination
Yes but in most situations, this list here is a great supplement
whenever one has a question.
Thanks Marc, good to know!