RubyMotion

Native iOS Apps in Ruby - presented at SDRuby on July 5, 2012

Transcript

1. RUBYMOTION
   Native iOS Apps in Ruby
   

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2. JAMES MILLER
   @bensie
   

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3. LAURENT SANSONETTI
   • Creator/maintainer of MacRuby
   • Left Apple, disappeared for awhile, re-emerged having created
   a startup that brings iOS development to Ruby
   • Plans to contribute parts of this work back to MacRuby
   

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4. PAIN POINTS
   When writing native iOS apps
   

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5. OBJECTIVE-C
   • Third-party libs still Objective-C, you need to know how to
   read it
   • RubyMotion syntax adds sanity but doesn't get rid of
   Objective-C
   textfromxcode.com
   

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6. XCODE
   • Forced into IDE
   • 11" air is terrible with Xcode
   • Tons of deep-down
   configuration, lots of dialogs
   • Buggy / Crashy
   textfromxcode.com
   

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7. RUBYMOTION
   What is it?
   

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8. WHAT IS IT?
   • Port of MacRuby for iOS
   • Ruby implementation on top of the Objective-C runtime and
   iOS foundation classes
   • Easiest Ruby version you'll ever install
   

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9. IS IT LIKE PHONEGAP?
   • No limits on APIs you can use because it's not wrapping APIs -
   the entire SDK is available and you implement Apple APIs
   directly
   • It does not bridge objects, it creates Objective-C objects
   directly
   • It does not run a bunch of code in a web view
   • It does not compromise on performance
   

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10. TRULY NATIVE
    

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11. TRULY NATIVE
    • Concurrent, no GIL, multi-core processors and GCD fully
    supported
    • Statically compiled to machine code (MacRuby uses JIT, which
    is not allowed on devices)
    • Full App Store compliance
    • Automatic memory management
    

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12. LIMITATIONS
    

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13. LIMITATIONS
    • require - cannot require files at runtime, they need to be
    available at build-time
    • eval - not supported in static compilation
    • define_method - not supported in static compilation
    • Proc#binding - removed because of performance issue
    • Regular Ruby gems do not work
    

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14. LIMITATIONS
    • No auto-complete - lots of copy-pasting Objective-C method
    names from docs and converting to Ruby
    • No stdlib
    • Debugger isn't awesome yet, but it's coming
    

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15. LANGUAGE BENEFITS
    

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16. NAMED PARAMETERS
    table = UITableView.alloc.initWithFrame(content_frame, style: UITableViewStylePlain)
    def tableView(tableView, didSelectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath)
    event = @events[indexPath.row]
    edvc = EventDetailViewController.alloc.init
    edvc.event = event
    edvc.title = event.name
    navigationController.pushViewController(edvc, animated: true)
    end
    - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
    {
    Event *event = [self.events objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
    EventDetailViewController *edvc = [[EventDetailViewController alloc] init];
    edvc.event = event;
    edvc.title = event.name;
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:edvc animated:YES];
    }
    

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17. BASE64
    • Objective-C - find and
    download a Base64 library,
    add it as a dependency,
    figure out how to use it,
    encode your string...
    • Ruby
    ["string"].pack("m")
    

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18. HEADER FILES / PROPERTIES
    // Foo.h
    @interface Foo : NSObject
    {
    }
    @property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *bar;
    @end
    // Foo.m
    #import "Foo.h"
    @implementation Foo
    @synthesize bar = _bar;
    @end
    class Foo
    attr_accessor :bar
    end
    

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19. MIX AND MATCH
    RUBY/OBJ-C METHODS
    a = [1]
    a.objectAtIndex(0)
    # => 1
    b = NSArray.arrayWithObject(1)
    b.first
    # => 1
    

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20. MIX AND MATCH
    RUBY/OBJ-C METHODS
    String.ancestors
    # => [String, NSMutableString, NSString, Comparable, NSObject, Kernel]
    Hash.ancestors
    # => [Hash, NSMutableDictionary, NSDictionary, Enumerable, NSObject, Kernel]
    Array.ancestors
    # => [Array, NSMutableArray, NSArray, Enumerable, NSObject, Kernel]
    

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21. ENUMERABLE
    • #map
    • #each
    • #select
    • #include?
    • #sort_by
    • #group_by
    • #take
    • #......
    • #......
    

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22. BUILT-IN REPL
    Read eval print loop
    

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23. REPL
    • CMD + click on UI element from the simulator and make live
    changes to objects - selected object becomes self in console
    • Closest thing in XCode is setting a breakpoint
    

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24. RAKE-BASED COMMAND LINE
    

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25. RAKE / COMMAND LINE
    • Create projects
    • Test projects
    • Run project in simulator
    • Send app to device
    • Create IPA archive for App Store
    

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26. TESTING
    You can’t call it Ruby if you can’t properly test it
    

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27. TESTING
    • Ships with MacBacon (small RSpec clone)
    • Naive at this point, more robust functionality coming soon
    

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28. AND BY SOON I MEAN...
    

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29. TODAY!
    

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30. FUNCTIONAL VIEW AND
    CONTROLLER TESTING
    • Uses the functionality in Apple’s UIAutomation framework
    describe "The Timer view controller" do
    tests TimerController
    it "has a timer label" do
    view('Tap to start').should.not == nil
    end
    end
    

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31. DEPENDENCIES
    

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32. DEPENDENCIES
    • CocoaPods - Bundler-like dependency definition, automatically
    vendors and requires third-party libraries at build time
    app.pods do
    dependency "JSONKit"
    dependency "AFNetworking"
    dependency "libPusher"
    end
    

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33. BUBBLEWRAP
    The beginning of Ruby helpers for Cocoa APIs
    

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34. BUBBLEWRAP
    • Device
    • App
    • JSON
    • Notification Center
    • Observers
    • Location
    • HTTP
    • EM Reactor
    • Time
    • ..... fork and contribute!
    bubblewrap.io
    A collection of (tested) helpers and wrappers used to
    wrap CocoaTouch code and provide more Ruby like APIs.
    

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35. GETTING STARTED
    • Buy license for $199
    • $99 annual renewal
    • Renewal not required for continued functionality
    • iOS developer license from Apple ($99/year)
    

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36. THANKS!
    

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