# Draft chapter of RubyCocoa book

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/draft-chapter-of-rubycocoa-book/128562>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 8, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/draft-chapter-of-rubycocoa-book/128562 "2008-02-08T22:23:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bdmcnitt)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/draft-chapter-of-rubycocoa-book/128562/1 "2008-02-08T22:23:59Z")

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I’m writing a book on RubyCocoa for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, publisher  
of many fine titles. [http://www.pragprog.com/titles](http://www.pragprog.com/titles) RubyCocoa lets  
you build Mac applications in Ruby.

I’m ready for people to take a look at a chapter, especially people  
who’ve never used RubyCocoa. The only prerequisite is that you have to  
be running Leopard.

This chapter will actually appear second in the book. The preceding  
introduction, covering prerequisites, the general plan of the book,  
its goals, what “Cocoa” is, etc. – that will probably be written last.

But to orient yourselves:

- I assume you know Ruby, but nothing about Objective-C, Cocoa, or  
building apps on the Mac.

- Rather than build the exposition from the outside-in, teaching you  
first how to draw user interfaces, I’m working from Ruby up. I start  
with Ruby, then begin adding Cocoa ideas and tools onto it.

- Especially in the beginning of the book, I want people to start  
changing code and seeing what happens. Might as well take advantage of  
Ruby’s fast edit-run loop.

The chapter and associated code are distributed as a disk image:  
[http://www.exampler.com/tmp/drafts/draft-of-2008-02-08.dmg](http://www.exampler.com/tmp/drafts/draft-of-2008-02-08.dmg)

What am I looking for? Don’t bother with typos, misspellings, grammar,  
awkwardly-placed figures, and the like: those will all get changed  
later. I’m interested in two things:

1. Did the approach work for you? Did this chapter flow in a pleasing  
and sensible way? Is there information inexplicably missing?

2. Where did you get confused or stuck, in either the text or the “try  
this yourself” sections? Why? What would have helped?

Thanks.

Further announcements will go only to the mailing list:  
[http://groups.google.com/group/rubycocoa-book](http://groups.google.com/group/rubycocoa-book)

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**Author:** ![bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bdmcnitt)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/draft-chapter-of-rubycocoa-book/128562/2 "2008-02-08T23:15:12Z")

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Way to go!

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**Author:** ![bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bdmcnitt)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/draft-chapter-of-rubycocoa-book/128562/3 "2008-02-08T23:56:57Z")

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Brian,  
Why is Leopard required?  
While it does simplify things, it is pretty easy to install RubyCocoa  
on Tiger, and you might consider adding a chapter or appendix on that.  
That said, if you’re doing anything at all with Interface Builder,  
the difference between IB for Tiger and Leopard is a world apart.

John J.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@bdmcnitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bdmcnitt)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/draft-chapter-of-rubycocoa-book/128562/4 "2008-02-09T19:56:12Z")

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On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:55 PM, John J. wrote:

> Brian,  
> Why is Leopard required?  
> While it does simplify things, it is pretty easy to install  
> RubyCocoa on Tiger, and you might consider adding a chapter or  
> appendix on that.  
> That said, if you’re doing anything at all with Interface Builder,  
> the difference between IB for Tiger and Leopard is a world apart.

I am going to use Interface Builder, plus perhaps some of the new  
frameworks in Leopard. A lot of the book will be usable pre-Leopard,  
but I suspect Leopard will be pretty much universal among the target  
audience by the time the book is out.