As a former Perl junkie, I definitely welcome the script language bindings. Here are a few reasons why I believe Ruby/Python development may be successful:
1. Ruby and Python do some things much faster and easier than Cocoa/Objective C. Things such as regular expressions, text processing, interacting with the shell, etc. As an example, you could easily port the Debian rename script (Perl) to Ruby with bindings, throw a slick GUI on it, and you have a powerful drag-n-drop batch renaming utility for Terminal-phobic users (like A Better Finder Rename, but in less than 100 lines of code).
2. Hopefully it'll encourage a bit more freeware in the Mac world, since scripting languages are inherently open source.
3. It's a lower barrier of entry for new/young developers. Because scripting languages are by default open source, it'll be easier for newbies to learn by tweaking existing freeware apps.
While I agree that Objective C makes more sense for many projects, I'll definitely use Ruby for tasks where it's a better fit.
p.s. The long Ruby line definitely looks odd to me. I'm a compulsive line-breaker/indenter/vertical aligner in scripting languages (which is why I never could use Python...), so I'd certainly reformat that.
by Scott Guelich — Feb 19
1. Ruby and Python do some things much faster and easier than Cocoa/Objective C. Things such as regular expressions, text processing, interacting with the shell, etc. As an example, you could easily port the Debian rename script (Perl) to Ruby with bindings, throw a slick GUI on it, and you have a powerful drag-n-drop batch renaming utility for Terminal-phobic users (like A Better Finder Rename, but in less than 100 lines of code).
2. Hopefully it'll encourage a bit more freeware in the Mac world, since scripting languages are inherently open source.
3. It's a lower barrier of entry for new/young developers. Because scripting languages are by default open source, it'll be easier for newbies to learn by tweaking existing freeware apps.
While I agree that Objective C makes more sense for many projects, I'll definitely use Ruby for tasks where it's a better fit.
p.s. The long Ruby line definitely looks odd to me. I'm a compulsive line-breaker/indenter/vertical aligner in scripting languages (which is why I never could use Python...), so I'd certainly reformat that.