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by James Britt.
Original Post: Monkeybars at Ruby Manor
Feed Title: James Britt: Ruby Development
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Feed Description: James Britt: Playing with better toys
I want add a few comments. First, while it is true that using JRuby means some gems do not work, the upside is that you have at your disposal the hojillion1 Java libraries. While it is a goal that all Ruby code, gem or not, work with JRuby (with some caveats about native code), the ability to call into Java libs is a major win. The post mentions that a particualr gem for using Twitter could not be used; I’m fairly sure this is the exact situation Logan Barnett encountered when he started on Twit-and-Twitter for the Java One Script Bowl.
Logan was able to use a Java lib for Twitter, one that (as I recall) offered a more robust API. Big win. So, not to diminish the problem JRuby may have with certain gems, but there are two ways of looking at this: Some gems don’t run (glass 99/100 empty), vs. full use of Java libs (glass overflowing onto the floor and out the door).
Second, Monkeybars was compared (so to speak) with Shoes. No mention was made of Shoes having stability issues (something I’ve seen for myself), but even were it rock-solid there is no way one would want to build a serious app of any complexity. (To fair, I don’t think Shoes was created for that purpose, though some enthusiasts mistake the ease of use as demonstrated in demo apps as something that scales to commercial-grade desktop applications. If and when there is a WYSIWYG editor for Shoes that might change.) I’m deeply skeptical that, for example, JotBot could have been made in Shoes, if only because of the lack of sophisticated components.
However, for those who really REALLY want to build GUI apps that way, good news: Work is afoot to add this to Monkeybars. We hope before too long to allow Monkeybars to offer the best of both worlds.
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