hi everyone!
here’s my problem…
Ruby’s great (not really a problem) and i’ve learnt quite a bit,
produced
four fairly small programs and now i want to move on, i want to grow
beyond
console windows, into the real application world…
but i don’t know which way to go…
i’ve considered rails, but i don’t really like web development, so i
figured
i might want to learn a gui, but i don’t know which to chose, i failed
with
tk, and i’m wondering what you would recommend…
greetings, Dirk.
On 11/28/05, Dirk M. [email protected] wrote:
i might want to learn a gui, but i don’t know which to chose, i failed with
tk, and i’m wondering what you would recommend…
In what sense did you “fail with Tk”? It’s arguably one of the easiest
GUI toolkits for Ruby to get started with, and I’m not sure that you’d
find the others any easier…
On 11/28/05, Dirk M. [email protected] wrote:
hi everyone!
here’s my problem…
Ruby’s great (not really a problem) and i’ve learnt quite a bit, produced
four fairly small programs and now i want to move on, i want to grow beyond
console windows, into the real application world…
but i don’t know which way to go…
i’ve considered rails, but i don’t really like web development, so i figured
i might want to learn a gui, but i don’t know which to chose, i failed with
tk, and i’m wondering what you would recommend…
greetings, Dirk.
text-only programs aren’t in in the ‘real application world’?
Dirk M. wrote:
What’s wrong with console apps? I’ve made a good living programming for
22 years and never wrote a web app or a GUI app. Think engineering and
math apps. Think reporting applications. Servers. Programs that convert
data in format A to format B.
Find an itch and write a program to scratch it. 4+ years ago I wanted to
write a web-based photo gallery application as a way to learn Ruby. The
only problem was there was no image manipulation library for Ruby, so I
sat down and started writing RMagick to be an interface between Ruby and
ImageMagick.
Never did write the photo gallery.
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Dirk M. wrote:
hi everyone!
here’s my problem…
Ruby’s great (not really a problem) and i’ve learnt quite a bit, produced
four fairly small programs and now i want to move on, i want to grow beyond
console windows, into the real application world…
but i don’t know which way to go…
i’ve considered rails, but i don’t really like web development, so i figured
i might want to learn a gui, but i don’t know which to chose, i failed with
tk, and i’m wondering what you would recommend…
The Pragmatic Programmers have published a short book on QtRuby. It’s
well worth reading.
– Matt
Nothing great was ever accomplished without passion
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Dirk M. wrote:
hi everyone!
here’s my problem…
Ruby’s great (not really a problem) and i’ve learnt quite a bit, produced
four fairly small programs and now i want to move on, i want to grow beyond
console windows, into the real application world…
but i don’t know which way to go…
i’ve considered rails, but i don’t really like web development, so i figured
i might want to learn a gui, but i don’t know which to chose, i failed with
tk, and i’m wondering what you would recommend…
greetings, Dirk.
remember graphical application don’t mean ‘real’ 
i’m working on a 24x7 satellite ingest/processing/delivery system. over
the
last year i’ve built a configurable file system event-driven processing
framework and an instant linux clustering toolset. in otherwords, solve
a
problem and the tools will either fallout in the process or you’ll need
to
write them yourself. either way you’re set.
cheers.
-a
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Timothy H. wrote:
tk, and i’m wondering what you would recommend…
greetings, Dirk.What’s wrong with console apps? I’ve made a good living programming for 22
years and never wrote a web app or a GUI app. Think engineering and math
apps. Think reporting applications. Servers. Programs that convert data in
format A to format B.
this from the man who wrote rmagick. i love it
-a
(In response to news:[email protected] by
Timothy H.)
Never did write the photo gallery.
Though others did So all is well that ends well.
k
i’d like people to use the programs i create, the average windows user
will
not like using a console…
anyway, i really like programming, but i’m still in highschool, and i
never
now what to program next.
i just think that gui’s would give me more options…
anyway, it looks to me like tk is still the best gui to learn, any
really
good tutorials out there?
(i once found one written especially Ruby, but it asumed you already had
tk
knowledge, so that didn’t work…)
greetings, Dirk
2005/11/29, [email protected] [email protected]:
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Dirk M. wrote:
i’d like people to use the programs i create, the average windows user will
not like using a console… anyway, i really like programming, but i’m
still in highschool, and i never now what to program next. i just think
that gui’s would give me more options… anyway, it looks to me like tk is
still the best gui to learn, any really good tutorials out there? (i once
found one written especially Ruby, but it asumed you already had tk
knowledge, so that didn’t work…)greetings, Dirk
tk is indeed the most easily learned gui for ruby. if really are intent
on
coding gui apps try something simple and post your questions here - i
would
imagine you’ll be up and running after stumbling over a few hurdles.
kind regards.
-a
Dirk M. wrote:
i’d like people to use the programs i create, the average windows
user will not like using a console…
Well the average windows user will not use Ruby nor as a matter of fact
stray very far from Word, Excel, iTunes and MediaPlayer.
And take note that most people on this list are not windows users, at
least not just windows users.
anyway, i really like programming, but i’m still in highschool, and i
never now what to program next.
Don’t worry, I finished highschool (and university) a long time ago and
I still don’t know what to program next. And I make my living as a
programmer, imagine that.
The only way you’re going to program something for fun is when you have
that ‘itch’ that Timothy said about.
Find something you want to do for yourself (most really popular programs
started as pet projects that somebody else discovered and liked).
Scenario: organize your CDs, figure how to do CDDB requests, scan your
MP3s and figure how to change ID3 tags, put it all together, add images
and build a GUI for it. Then make it web based. You’ll be the nth
(n–>infinite) programmer who has build a media library but it will be
yours :).
Post it on Rubyforge and let the hounds of critical assesment pound it.
Notice that what I described above does not require that you start with
a GUI. The GUI (the actual presentation of the application, your view)
is a significant part, but not the most significant, nor the first you
have to consider (usability experts will curse me now). Learn how to
build clean interfaces and nicely decoupled components and you’ll be
able to change GUIs according to what you fancy most - and you can use
the nice, old, simple command line to test everything without much fuss.
i just think that gui’s would give me more options… anyway, it looks
to me like tk is still the best gui to learn, any really good
tutorials out there? (i once found one written especially Ruby, but
it asumed you already had tk knowledge, so that didn’t work…)
You could also try Fox, which I find very agreeable personally (I don’t
like Tk’s looks - at all).
Cheers,
V.-
–
http://www.braveworld.net/riva
From: Damphyr [email protected]
Subject: Re: what to do, what to do…
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:13:07 +0900
Message-ID: [email protected]
(I don’t like Tk’s looks - at all
Many people say so. 
However, Tcl/Tk8.5 accepts integrating the tile themed widget set
(not yet integrated).
The Tile extension is an improbed themeing engine for Tk
(see Tile: an improved themeing engine for Tk).
WIth Tile, you can get native (much closer) look and feel on your OS,
and can change the theme dynamically.
Ruby/Tk already supports the Tile extension
(see ext/tk/lib/tkextlib/tile.rb & ext/tk/lib/tkextlib/tile/).
If you try it (of course, Tile has to work on your Tcl/Tk
libraries), please use the latest version of Ruby/Tk because
of bugs on wrapper libraries.
Dirk M. wrote:
i might want to learn a gui, but i don’t know which to chose,
Definitely try Ruby-GTK. It’s very nice to my way of thinking.
And once you know GTK you can also use it in Python, C#, C++…,
whatever you can think of, on either Windows or Linux (maybe OS-X soon)
so it’s a good skill.
On 11/29/05, [email protected] [email protected] wrote:
greetings, Dirk
tk is indeed the most easily learned gui for ruby. if really are intent on
coding gui apps try something simple and post your questions here - i would
imagine you’ll be up and running after stumbling over a few hurdles.
Personally, I had a lot easier time learning ruby-gnome2. The
documentation is a lot better, and I could use the standard gtk2 docs
as well. I never quite got the hang of Tk.
Joe Van D. wrote:
found one written especially Ruby, but it asumed you already had tk
documentation is a lot better, and I could use the standard gtk2 docs
as well. I never quite got the hang of Tk.
when I was learning ruby/tk, I used three sources that worked well for
me. The first was a book called “Ruby Developer’s Guide”. It had a
nice chapter on GUI development and covered TK with a little more depth
than in the PickAxe. This was enough to get me going. The next source
I used was a ruby/tk reference which can be found on the Ruby
Application Archive which is a translation of the Japanese Ruby/TK
Reference. This Reference is far from perfect, but it’s enough to allow
you to do most things. The last place I was able to find good
information was from reading the ruby/tk demos. These can be a bit
tricky to find as the original maintainer seems to have removed them
from his site. However the windows one click installer comes with this
example code, as well as some extra example code which was really
useful. In particular the One click installers demo code comes with an
example of how to construct a TK menubar that allows you to use
ALT- combinations correctly.
here’s a link to the rubytk_en ref on the RAA
http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/rubytk_en/
I hope this information helps.