RubyMotion

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

Transcript

1. RUBYMOTION Native iOS Apps in Ruby
2. JAMES MILLER @bensie
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
4. PAIN POINTS When writing native iOS apps
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
6. XCODE • Forced into IDE • 11" air is terrible with Xcode • Tons of deep-down configuration, lots of dialogs • Buggy / Crashy textfromxcode.com
7. RUBYMOTION What is it?
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
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
10. TRULY NATIVE
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
12. LIMITATIONS
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
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
15. LANGUAGE BENEFITS
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]; }
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")
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
19. MIX AND MATCH RUBY/OBJ-C METHODS a = [1] a.objectAtIndex(0) # => 1 b = NSArray.arrayWithObject(1) b.first # => 1
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]
21. ENUMERABLE • #map • #each • #select • #include? • #sort_by • #group_by • #take • #...... • #......
22. BUILT-IN REPL Read eval print loop
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
24. RAKE-BASED COMMAND LINE
25. RAKE / COMMAND LINE • Create projects • Test projects • Run project in simulator • Send app to device • Create IPA archive for App Store
26. TESTING You can’t call it Ruby if you can’t properly test it
27. TESTING • Ships with MacBacon (small RSpec clone) • Naive at this point, more robust functionality coming soon
28. AND BY SOON I MEAN...
29. TODAY!
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
31. DEPENDENCIES
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
33. BUBBLEWRAP The beginning of Ruby helpers for Cocoa APIs
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.
35. GETTING STARTED • Buy license for $199 • $99 annual renewal • Renewal not required for continued functionality • iOS developer license from Apple ($99/year)
36. THANKS!