NSRevolution: How Ruby Hackers Built the New Objective-C Open Source Community

Objective-C was everything you’d expect of the official language of Apple. At the intersection of science and liberal arts (Smalltalk), its APIs are well-designed, with (almost) everything you need available out-of-the-box… but with no room for customization. And that’s the way it went: for decades, Apple supplied all of the code. No open source community to speak of.

Last year, that all changed. With the new wave of web programmers coming over to develop for iOS, there was a huge influx of new ideas and energy into Objective-C. This is the story of how new developers with new ideas sparked a new era of collaboration and innovation for Objective-C—how, for the first time, the community was able to come together to start solving their own problems, rather than relying on Apple to do it for them. It will look at how the Ruby community shaped the emerging philosophy of modern Objective-C libraries and tools.

Transcript

1. NSRevolution How Ruby hackers built the new Objective-C Open Source community
2. “A Tale of Two Languages”
3. Objective-C Ruby
5. foo.bar(baz) [foo bar:baz];
6. underscore_variable_name def short(options = {}) CAPITALIZED_CONSTANT Module::Class camelCaseVariableName - (void)longMethodWithParameter: andAnotherParameter: kCamelCaseConstant MNClass
7. • Smalltalk • C • Smalltalk • Perl • Eiffel • Lisp
8. Smalltalk
9. OOP objects passing messages to one-another
11. 1 to: 10 do:[ :i | Transcript show:i. Transcript show:' '. Transcript show:i sqt. Transcript cr. ].
12. myButton := Button new. myButton label: 'press me'. myButton action: [ myButton destroy ]. myButton open.
13. A brief statement about cultural forces & attributing surface-level causes to large phenomena
15. Conway’s Law Software architecture mirrors communication structures of the organizations creating it
16. WWDC
18. WWDC – is the – embodiment – of –  developer relations
27. Meanwhile...
28. Rails
31. Rails was exactly what the web needed in 2005
33. • Noobs • Iconoclasts • Dillitants • Hipsters • Scavengers • Establishmentarians Evolution of Rubyists
34. Rubyist Tent Poles • TDD • Tooling • Progress • Overthinking
35. iPhone
37. Rails 1.0 12/2005 iPhone SDK 3/2008
38. ≈ 2 Years
39. ≈ 1 Startup
41. Objective C for Rubyists
42. CocoaPods
44. 1.3k Projects on CocoaPods
45. For the first time, we control our ecosystem
47. Write iOS Apps with Ruby RubyMotion
51. • Teacup • Sugarcube • Motion-Xray
52. Stylesheets for iOS NUI
54. @primaryFontName: HelveticaNeue; @secondaryFontName: HelveticaNeue-Light; @primaryFontColor: #333333; @primaryBackgroundColor: #E6E6E6; Button { background-color: @primaryBackgroundColor; border-color: #A2A2A2; border-width: @primaryBorderWidth; font-color: @primaryFontColor; font-color-highlighted: #999999; font-name: @primaryFontName; font-size: 18; corner-radius: 7; } NavigationBar { background-tint-color: @primaryBackgroundColor; font-name: @secondaryFontName; font-size: 20; font-color: @primaryFontColor; text-shadow-color: #666666; text-shadow-offset: 1,1; }
55. Integration Testing Framework KIF
57. + (id)scenarioToLogIn; { KIFTestScenario *scenario = [KIFTestScenario scenarioWithDescription:@"Test that a user can successfully log in."]; [scenario addStep:[KIFTestStep stepToReset]]; [scenario addStepsFromArray:[KIFTestStep stepsToGoToLoginPage]]; [scenario addStep:[KIFTestStep stepToEnterText:@"user@example.com" intoViewWithAccessibilityLabel:@"Login User Name"]]; [scenario addStep:[KIFTestStep stepToEnterText:@"thisismypassword" intoViewWithAccessibilityLabel:@"Login Password"]]; [scenario addStep:[KIFTestStep stepToTapViewWithAccessibilityLabel:@"Log In"]]; // Verify that the login succeeded [scenario addStep:[KIFTestStep stepToWaitForTappableViewWithAccessibilityLabel:@"Welcome"]]; return scenario; } @end
58. Functional Reactive Programming ReactiveCocoa
60. [RACAble(self.username) subscribeNext:^(NSString *newName) { NSLog(@"%@", newName); }];
61. Cucumber for iOS Frank
64. An Extensible Open Source Mobile Backend Framework Helios
66. • Core Data Synchronization • Push Notification • In-App Purchase • Passbook • Logging & Analytics
67. • github.com/CocoaPods • github.com/ReactiveCocoa • github.com/square/KIF • github.com/tombenner/nui • github.com/moredip/Frank • github.com/helios-framework
68. tl;dr
72. #iOSonRailsConf
73. Thanks! Mattt Thompson @mattt http://mattt.me http://nshipster.com