Gtk/Gnome-Applications with Ruby or Mono

[Michael Gebhart]

Hi,

I'm currently thinking about writing an application for the gnome-desktop.
But I can not decide, what language I should use for. I'm just interested
in Ruby, C# and C++.

C++ gives me all features gtk/gnome has. gtkmm is a nice wrapper for gtk+.
But programming with c++ is a little bit error-prone and the development
time is very large.

Mono seems to be designed for gtk and gnome. The gnome-libs are
implemented in mono, and gtk (2.4) too. But the disadvantage is, that Mono
has to be installed on the target system. (And Mono smells of Microsoft
and I have .exe - Files on my linux *scnr*)

Ruby is the language I am personally interested in. Also here gtk-bindings
are available. But some ruby-users told me, that the ruby-gnome-bindings
are a little bit unstable and a lot of features are not implemented yet.

And as Mono: Ruby has to be installed on the target OS.

So I don't know, what language I should prefer. Normally I should choose
the language, by what language is the best one for my application. But
every language has all the features I need.

Can you tell me anything about the ruby-gtk/gnome-bindings and its
features and its stability?

Or should I use Mono? Because Mono becomes the standard for development
GUI-Applications for the Gnome-Desktop?

Thanks for your answers

Mike

 

[James Britt]

And as Mono: Ruby has to be installed on the target OS.

Something to consider: there are Ruby tools that bundle-up a complete
Ruby interpreter with an application such that the end user knows
nothing about any of this "Ruby" stuff, they just run the app and enjoy
the fruits of your labor. The extraction and use of Ruby is invisible.

That may also be possible with Mono, but I believe the required mono
runtime files are much larger.

James

 

[Bill Atkins]

I'm not sure if gtk-bindings is the same thing, but the way to go for
Ruby GTK programming is http://ruby-gnome2.sourceforge.jp . I use the
bindings on Windows and Linux, and I've never had any issues with
stability.

Bill

 

[Michael Gebhart]

Hi,

thanks for your answer. Sounds really nice. Do you know benchmarks for
ruby? And the memory needs?

Greetings

Mike

 

[Michael Gebhart]

Hi

yes, I know this URL. But the gnome-part is not fully implemented yet. And
I've read, that the implementation is not very good, but if you don't have
any problems... hm.

Do you know any benchmarks for ruby?

Greetings and thanks

Mike

 

[Bill Atkins]

Ah, my mistake. I was referring only to the Gtk+ part, I've never
touched the GNOME bindings. Sorry about the confusion.

Bill

 

[gabriele renzi]

Michael Gebhart ha scritto:

Hi,

thanks for your answer. Sounds really nice. Do you know benchmarks for
ruby? And the memory needs?

it is slower than mono, but in this case the most of the hard part is
done from Gtk that is written in C. As for memory, I can't say, but
..net/mono applications seem to use quite a bit of memory.

 

[Nikolai Weibull]

* Michael Gebhart (Feb 05, 2005 12:40):

yes, I know this URL. But the gnome-part is not fully implemented yet.

Eh, not much missing though...

And I've read, that the implementation is not very good, but if you
don't have any problems... hm.

Eh, where have you read this? I'd venture as far as to say that it's a
very good implementation,
nikolai