# Some Questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [January 30, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-questions/127597 "2008-01-30T17:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![massimiliano](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/848f3c/32.png) [@massimiliano](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/massimiliano)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-questions/127597/1 "2008-01-30T17:48:04Z")
Hi all, At the moment, I need to start some projects in my job. - One, is a POS (Point of Sale) with a backend for control inventory, products, etc… - Other, is a HelpDesk soft to control our clients. - Another, is a script to do some usual task in a MSAccess database All of this, may run on Windows, Linux, and I will develop from Mac. I tought about develop it on Squeak/Smalltalk, but I would like to try other languaje, and, as I can see, Ruby is similar, all are object 😃 (I love OOP) At the moment, I’m not interested on web programming, RoR, or similar (in future, for some projects or diferent interface, probably). Then, this are my doubts… - Speed: I readed about Ruby is slooooooow. I want to know if is veeeeryyy slooow for a Desktop application (medium, large projects). - Librarys: I need GUI building software (some portable UI? with gui builder?), DataBase access, ¿Object Databases? there are a good collection of librarys for day by day? All I read about Ruby is about Rails. - Support: I’m new to ruby, and I will need some help. Other lists? or this is the main? Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for my bad english. ---
**Author:** ![massimiliano](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/848f3c/32.png) [@massimiliano](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/massimiliano)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-questions/127597/2 "2008-01-30T19:58:30Z")
Giuseppe luigi Punzi ruiz wrote: > I tought about develop it on Squeak/Smalltalk, but I would like to try > other languaje, and, as I can see, Ruby is similar, all are object 😃 (I > love OOP) > > At the moment, I’m not interested on web programming, RoR, or similar > (in future, for some projects or diferent interface, probably). Then, > this are my doubts… > > - Speed: I readed about Ruby is slooooooow. I want to know if is > veeeeryyy slooow for a Desktop application (medium, large projects). Ruby is slow for some tasks. Looking at your application list, I doubt that will affect you much. But no, you would not choose Ruby for Quake 5. The best thing to do is to give it a test. I find that Gtk and Qt applications written in Ruby start up slower than there C/C++ counterparts but don’t necessarily run much slower. But I don’t have much experience with GUI programming. Consider execution speed vs. development speed. In many cases you need to complete an application in a fairly short time. Ruby is good at that. Sometimes you need applications that run at a high speed. Ruby is not so good at that. The applications you listed usually spend most of their time displaying a form and waiting for the user to complete forms, etc. I cannot imagine that Ruby is slower at waiting for a user than . The server side is where you could start to run into performance issues, at least if you have a large number of people connecting to the applications simultaneously. You’d have to write some small test cases, emulate the expected load and see how well Ruby degrades. > - Librarys: I need GUI building software (some portable UI? with gui > builder?), DataBase access, ¿Object Databases? there are a good > collection of librarys for day by day? All I read about Ruby is about > Rails. Portable toolkits: Qt, Gtk2, Tk, Swing (if you use JRuby), probably others. > - Support: I’m new to ruby, and I will need some help. Other lists? > or this is the main? IRC is good. This list is good. Google is good. > Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for my bad english. One last thing: you stated that you need to write these applications for your job. As much as I love Ruby and would encourage you to learn it because it makes life so damn sweet, what is your time-frame? Is this the right time to learn a new language? If time is of the essence it might be advisable to stick to what you already know. Just my thoughts, Lorenzo ---
**Author:** ![massimiliano](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/848f3c/32.png) [@massimiliano](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/massimiliano)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-questions/127597/3 "2008-01-30T21:14:21Z")
Lorenzo E. Danielsson wrote: > Ruby is slow for some tasks. Looking at your application list, I doubt > that will affect you much. But no, you would not choose Ruby for Quake > 5. I don’t need Quake 5, and I don’t want it 🙂 > The best thing to do is to give it a test. I find that Gtk and Qt > applications written in Ruby start up slower than there C/C++ > counterparts but don’t necessarily run much slower. But I don’t have > much experience with GUI programming. > > Consider execution speed vs. development speed. In many cases you need > to complete an application in a fairly short time. Ruby is good at that. > Sometimes you need applications that run at a high speed. Ruby is not so > good at that. > > The applications you listed usually spend most of their time displaying > a form and waiting for the user to complete forms, etc. I cannot imagine > that Ruby is slower at waiting for a user than . > > The server side is where you could start to run into performance issues, > at least if you have a large number of people connecting to the > applications simultaneously. You’d have to write some small test cases, > emulate the expected load and see how well Ruby degrades. I don’t need a fast startup. I need fast operations clicking buttons thath add products to a ticket to sell. Don’t have to wait 20 seconds to retrieve 1000 clients from a SQL database or to change some parameters on a products table with 20000 records, etc… A Disco for example, need to do this things fast. The startup speed is’nt a problem. For this projects I don’t need many users at the same time (10?, 20? for example) > Portable toolkits: Qt, Gtk2, Tk, Swing (if you use JRuby), probably > others. I’m checking the posible options, if I can’t find a portable toolkit, and a binding updated, then, I will need to develop over web if I choose Ruby as option, but, wxRuby for example, seems to be updated. > IRC is good. This list is good. Google is good. Perfect 🙂 > One last thing: you stated that you need to write these applications for > your job. As much as I love Ruby and would encourage you to learn it > because it makes life so damn sweet, what is your time-frame? Is this > the right time to learn a new language? If time is of the essence it > might be advisable to stick to what you already know. The time is not a problem for this projects. The time will be essential for update, upgrade or add features this projects, but then, I think we will have experience for this. Otherwise, we have experience in other languajes, and I hope the “jump” will not much difficult. > Just my thoughts, > Lorenzo Thanks a lot Lorenzo.