Asp Forum - Cross-platform standalone Ruby apps ?

Pieter Kubben

9/5/2006 7:09:00 PM

Hi,

I am new here, experience with PHP and looking for a similar language
that permits to do cross-platform programming of database driven apps,
so that they run on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows from one codebase with
some recompiling.

Preferably relatively easy to distribute.

Could Ruby work for this? And what would be the best database to go for?

(I read about Ruby on Rails, might be a nice addition to my PHP
knowledge but first I need to know the answer to my question above)

Hope you can help me out!

Pieter

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

13 Answers

Jamey Cribbs

9/5/2006 8:08:00 PM

Pieter Kubben wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am new here, experience with PHP and looking for a similar language
> that permits to do cross-platform programming of database driven apps,
> so that they run on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows from one codebase with
> some recompiling.
>
> Preferably relatively easy to distribute.
>
> Could Ruby work for this? And what would be the best database to go for?
>
Sure. I am assuming you are talking about *gui* database apps. If so,
I can recommend both FXRuby (although, last time I checked its OS X
support was lacking) and RubyGtk2. Both have worked well for me in the
past.

There is also WxRuby and QtRuby, but I don't have any experience with
either.

Whichever you choose, be sure to use RubyScript2Exe to package
everything up into one easy to distribute executable.

As far as database management systems, you would need to give more info
on your requirements before that could be answered. Ruby plays well
with most every dbms.

HTH,

Jamey Cribbs

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

9/5/2006 8:38:00 PM

Jamey Cribbs wrote:
> I can recommend both FXRuby (although, last time I checked its OS X
> support was lacking) and RubyGtk2. Both have worked well for me in the
> past.
>
> There is also WxRuby and QtRuby, but I don't have any experience with
> either.
My personal preference is QTRuby. The widgets are "prettier" and there
is an excellent book from the Pragmatic Programmers teaching exactly how
it works! If you're on Linux, you can go a couple of steps further and
build KDE applications with Korundum or Kommander.

> As far as database management systems, you would need to give more info
> on your requirements before that could be answered. Ruby plays well
> with most every dbms.
SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and MS SQL Server are supported for
sure. I'm not sure about DB2.

David Vallner

9/9/2006 12:25:00 PM

Jamey Cribbs wrote:
> Pieter Kubben wrote:
>> Preferably relatively easy to distribute.
>>
> Whichever you choose, be sure to use RubyScript2Exe to package
> everything up into one easy to distribute executable.
>

I'd advise to use distribution-specific packaging for Linuxen. I get
twitchy when I have to install an app that APT won't know about.

David Vallner

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

9/9/2006 5:50:00 PM

David Vallner wrote:
> Jamey Cribbs wrote:
>> Pieter Kubben wrote:
>>> Preferably relatively easy to distribute.
>>>
>> Whichever you choose, be sure to use RubyScript2Exe to package
>> everything up into one easy to distribute executable.
>>
>
> I'd advise to use distribution-specific packaging for Linuxen. I get
> twitchy when I have to install an app that APT won't know about.
>
> David Vallner
>
>
Which means you need at least a .deb and .rpm binary package, Debian
source and RPM source, a pure source tarball for everyone else and a
friend in the Gentoo community to make you an ebuild from the tarball.
:) Makes gem look better and better with each word I type. :)

Seriously, though, since I run Gentoo, I have similar problems. Gentoo
has its own repository, and quite a few of the more popular gems are
already packaged. Rails, rake, gem itself, of course, nitro, fxruby,
qtruby, etc. are all in Gentoo.

But if there's a gem I want that isn't in the Gentoo Portage tree, I can
install it. Portage doesn't know it's there. I install source tarballs
all the time; they usually go into /usr/local by default, which keeps
them out of the way of the main distro which puts everything in /usr by
default.

David Vallner

9/10/2006 12:04:00 AM

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Which means you need at least a .deb and .rpm binary package, Debian
> source and RPM source, a pure source tarball for everyone else and a
> friend in the Gentoo community to make you an ebuild from the tarball.
> :) Makes gem look better and better with each word I type. :)
>

Gems aren't a bad choice either - the problem is that there Are Some
Issues with applications in gems. At least there were with "resource"
lookup, Trans' Facets couldn't find its default data / config files a
while ago.

I wonder if that kink was already ironed out.

And with decent tool support, it can't be THAT hard to provide native
packaging once you set up your environment right. Never tried though,
I'll admit.

> But if there's a gem I want that isn't in the Gentoo Portage tree, I can
> install it. Portage doesn't know it's there. I install source tarballs
> all the time; they usually go into /usr/local by default, which keeps
> them out of the way of the main distro which puts everything in /usr by
> default.
>

I mainly have problems with config file droppings since I already forget
to purge debs instead of removing. And what with stupid me being a
sucker for late development releases once I see a half-decent review...
Well, let's say that Ubuntu Breezy -> Dapper Flight 5 package config
file update bug that clobbered the resolver ("Argh, teh interwebz don't
work!") was not particularly fun considering the "google for an answer"
solution wasn't available.

David Vallner

Trans

9/10/2006 1:12:00 AM

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

9/10/2006 1:19:00 AM

Trans wrote:
> Pieter Kubben wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am new here, experience with PHP and looking for a similar language
>> that permits to do cross-platform programming of database driven apps,
>> so that they run on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows from one codebase with
>> some recompiling.
>>
>> Preferably relatively easy to distribute.
>>
>> Could Ruby work for this? And what would be the best database to go for?
>>
>> (I read about Ruby on Rails, might be a nice addition to my PHP
>> knowledge but first I need to know the answer to my question above)
>>
>> Hope you can help me out!
>
> Database: PostgreSQL
> GUI: Web (stand-alone via a webrick servlet)
>
>
>
1. Rails also works with MySQL and SQLite, which in turn work on
Windows, Mac and Linux

2. I don't think *any* recompiling is required to use Ruby on Rails,
though in some cases (Gentoo Linux, for example) you end up recompiling
the Ruby installer and the database in the course of installing them.
But you don't recompile any Rails code.

Pieter Kubben

9/11/2006 11:11:00 AM

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Trans wrote:
>>> Could Ruby work for this? And what would be the best database to go for?
>>
> 1. Rails also works with MySQL and SQLite, which in turn work on
> Windows, Mac and Linux
>
> 2. I don't think *any* recompiling is required to use Ruby on Rails,
> though in some cases (Gentoo Linux, for example) you end up recompiling
> the Ruby installer and the database in the course of installing them.
> But you don't recompile any Rails code.

If I read all the comments, I doubt whether Ruby will be the right
choice for me. However, I like the initiative, and perhaps it will turn
out to be very useful in the future.

For now I guess I'd have to focus more on Java, as Python does also not
seem to deliver what I am looking for...

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Rick DeNatale

9/11/2006 8:25:00 PM

On 9/11/06, Pieter Kubben <pieter@kubben.nl> wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> > Trans wrote:
> >>> Could Ruby work for this? And what would be the best database to go for?
> >>
> > 1. Rails also works with MySQL and SQLite, which in turn work on
> > Windows, Mac and Linux
> >
> > 2. I don't think *any* recompiling is required to use Ruby on Rails,
> > though in some cases (Gentoo Linux, for example) you end up recompiling
> > the Ruby installer and the database in the course of installing them.
> > But you don't recompile any Rails code.
>
> If I read all the comments, I doubt whether Ruby will be the right
> choice for me. However, I like the initiative, and perhaps it will turn
> out to be very useful in the future.
>
> For now I guess I'd have to focus more on Java, as Python does also not
> seem to deliver what I am looking for...

I'm curious as to what you saw in the responses which made you think
that Ruby isn't the right choice.

I got three things out of the responses so far.

1) some discussion based on the assumption that you were looking for a
gui app rather than something else, e.g. a web app. Since you never
responded to that, if it was a mis-assumption then don't assume that
Ruby won't work for other types of apps.

2) Statements that Ruby is pretty agnostic when it comes to a particular RDB.

3) Statements that you normally don't have to recompile for different
platforms. Was your requirement really that there be "some
recompiling" that there be "some" recompiling?

4) A side discussion over whether or not code for linux distributions
should be packaged in a distro specific package format, and if so what
tools to use for that. That's a separate discussion which is
independent of whether you use php, ruby, java, or anything else.

--
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denh...

Rick DeNatale

9/11/2006 8:27:00 PM

On 9/11/06, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@gmail.com> wrote:

> I got three things out of the responses so far.
>
> 1) some discussion ...
>
> 2) Statements that Ruby ...
>
> 3) Statements that ...
>
> 4) A side discussion over ...

I wasn't conciously trying to imitate King Arthur in Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Honest!

--
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denh...

comp.lang.ruby

Cross-platform standalone Ruby apps ?

Pieter Kubben

Jamey Cribbs

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

David Vallner

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

David Vallner

Trans

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

Pieter Kubben

Rick DeNatale

Rick DeNatale

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