[ANN] Rucola 0.0.1 released.

[eloy.de.enige]

Hello,

Yesterday we released the first alpha version of rucola:
http://rucola.rubyforge.org/

For a screencast (showed at RubyConf by Dr Nic) using the rucola
command see this post:
http://www.superalloy.nl/blog/2007/11/04/rucola-a-rubycocoa-application-builder/

Cheers,
Eloy Duran & Justin Palmer

========================================================================
A Framework for building Cocoa applications in Ruby

Rucola is a light weight framework that helps you write RubyCocoa apps.
It allows you to build, test, and deploy applications using rake
commands,
eliminating the need to use XCode, however you can use XCode if you
wish.

Rucola provides a set of generators to help you generate controllers,
window controllers,
and document-based applications. It also provides APIs for simplifying
some of Objective-C’s
ways of doing things.

 

[dangerwillrobinsondanger]

Excellent beginning!
I was just thinking about such things on the toilet this morning (of
course, where else?).
With RubyCocoa now officially bundled in OS X, it is only a matter of
months before this kind of thing explodes.
I was thinking about:

Using ActiveRecord, and potentially some sort of Rails-like
framework. But for OS X development, there is no reason to install
MySQL, rather, just use SQLite, since it too is bundled and is
commonly used by Mac applications.

Using WebKit as a super-lazy, "no need to learn Cocoa" approach to
building an app.

Even for developing Dashboard Widgets... a Ruby solution would be nice.

 

[eloy.de.enige]

Hi John,

There is also already some code in RubyCocoa that allows you to use
ActiveRecord (with for instance SQLite) in combination with Cocoa
bindings.

http://rubycocoa.sourceforge.net/ActiveRecordSupport

It doesn't support everything (yet) of course, but it's a good basis
for such glue code.
And bindings will make you happy.... generally

Actually I think that the "no need to learn" cocoa is not gonna happen.
But it will also not be such a problem with projects like Rucola I
think,
because you get up and running in way which is generally known to ruby
devs.
Instead of (the pain of) learning xcode etc.

Once you get past that you will see that cocoa is a very nice
environment to work in.
And Interface Builder rocks!

Cheers,
Eloy

PS: I thought everybody did their coding exclusively on the toilet?

 

[dangerwillrobinsondanger]

I've been working through some books on Cocoa lately to be a little
prepared.
It's just that Cocoa is such a HUGE framework, and so much of the
framework was written long ago and it shows with some of the naming
schemes and concept names. Learning Ruby and Rails actually makes
Cocoa much easier to swallow I think.
So whenever I get the spare cash to get a new Mac, I'll be monkeying
with RubyCocoa (and maybe Rucola).
This iBook G4 can probably run Leopard, but I already have so much
set up on here that I need to keep it as is until something new is
set up to take its place.

 

[eloy.de.enige]

Just to be clear, you don't need Leopard to play with RubyCocoa.
It will just as happily work on Tiger. Although with less framework
support than
Leopard, it's still very usable foor the majority of the applications.
You could even run it on Panther with some extra work.

Eloy

 

[dangerwillrobinsondanger]

I remember it being introduced or at least getting a little hype back
in the Panther days. That's the first time I heard of Ruby.
I'm kind of waiting though, I'm very curious to see what Xcode 3 will
do for me. It's really tough to imagine doing Ruby in anything other
than TextMate now. TM spoiled me...

 

[eloy.de.enige]

I use TextMate exclusively with my RubyCocoa projects.
There's no added benefit for me of working with Xcode.
Of course I sometimes need to use it to tweak app settings, but that's
about it.

Eloy