Small intro about using Ruby on Windows.

1. RUBY ON WINDOWS
Up and Runing
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2. WHO AM I?
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3. About me
張銘軒 (Mason Chang)
Was a hardware engineer
Love software and programming
Start using Ruby since late 2009
Twitter: @changmason (I don’t tweet though)
Email: changmason@gmail.com
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4. WHY (ON WINDOWS)?
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5. You are more familiar with
Windows environments.
Picture courtesy of yum9me (CC) BY-NC-ND 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yum9me/532905569
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6. You don’t want to fight against existing
tools and workflows inside your company.
Picture courtesy of erix (CC) BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erix/77966968/
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7. Broader user base, your target
users are on Windows.
Picture courtesy of opacity (CC) BY-NC-ND 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/opacity/4483057728/
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8. WHAT RUBY?
... BECAUSE
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9. Many Rubies (which on Win?)
MRI JRuby IronRuby Rubinius MacRuby MagLev
◎ ◎ ◎ ▵ ✕ ✕
◎ => Yes.
✕ => No.
▵ => Maybe. (planned to support Windows in the near future)
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10. BUT, Windows users don’t
like to compile code!!!
Picture courtesy of TahoeSunsets (CC) BY-NC-SA 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raparker/236912028
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11. Ruby Installer
Compiled executables under MinGW32 dev environment
Both newest Ruby 1.8.7p352 and 1.9.2p290 are available
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12. JRuby Installer
Require JRE (or JDK if you want to compile .rb into .class)
Ruby 1.8 compatible and Ruby 1.9 supported
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13. Rails Installer
All in one package, including MRI Ruby, Rails, Git and DevKit
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14. rvm => No, pik => Yes
Very similar to rvm, it helps you to install, manage, and switch
among all available Rubies on Windows.
There are two ways to install pik:
1. If you already have a Ruby installed:
gem install pik
pik_install c:bin
2.otherwise, use pik installer:
https://github.com/vertiginous/pik/downloads
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15. pik help commands
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16. Other Dev Tools
Version control:
msysgit: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
git-bash:
Provide a *nix-like CLI with colors on Windows.
Text editors:
Notepad++: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ (Freeware)
E-texteditor: http://www.e-texteditor.com/ (Textmate clone)
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17. HOW TO ?
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18. How to code?
EOL(end of line):
To share your code with the community, please convert EOL
from Windows format(CRLF) to UNIX format(LF) in your
source files. (You text editors can do this for you, check it!!)
Pathname:
Although Ruby, on Windows, can automatically translate in
between “/” and “” of a file path, it is recommended that you
use “pathname” to handle a complex file path which is got from
the user. (There may be spaces and Chinese characters.)
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19. How to install gems?
“gem install xxx” will automatically detect your platform and
install the right gem for you.
For JRuby, please use “jruby -S gem install xxx” instead.
You can also manually download and
install the gems that correspond to
your platform if “gem install xxx” fail
to detect the right gems for you.
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20. How about gem compatibility?
Most gems written in pure Ruby or shipped with precompiled
C-extension work out of the box on Windows: sinatra, nokogiri
Some gems with native C-extension may need a few tweaks and
compilation(DevKit is your friend): mysql2
Still there are very few gems that will hardly work on Windows
because they are designed for POSIX OS: unicorn
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21. How to do Windows automation
(use WIN32OLE)?
Operate Windows applications just like operate Ruby objects,
(no need to write any VB script):
InternetExplorer, Excel, Word, PowerPoint...
Reflection support through methods with prefix ole_*:
:ole_methods, :ole_type, :ole_method_help
OLE object’s OLE methods are case insensitive:
obj.visible is the same as object.ViSiBlE
Please refer to MSDN for API: http://msdn.microsoft.com/
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22. WIN32OLE - example
https://gist.github.com/1173715
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23. How to program GUI?
Several libraries are available:
FoxRuby, WxRuby, Shoes, Bowline
However, these gems are not under regular maintenance
GUI programming with Swing in JRuby is a good solution
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24. Swing GUI - example(p1)
https://github.com/changmason/id_maker
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25. Swing GUI - example(p2)
import Java classes to
current Ruby namespace
Ruby class can inherit Java class
call Java’s constructor
setter in Java style
event handling by a Ruby block
tell the swing worker
to run in background
setter in Ruby style
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26. Swing GUI - example(p3)
Although JRuby runtime can call Java methods
in camelCaseStyle or in snake_case_style, this
doInBackground method is invoked by Java in
the background thread actually. So we MUST
name it in Java way.
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27. How about packaging
your programs?
In Ruby use OCRA (One Click Ruby Application):
Package all your source files with the Ruby interpreter and
required gems into one .exe file.
In JRuby use rawr or Warbler:
Same as above, but they can also help you to compile your .rb
files into .class files. The output can be a standalone .jar, .war
or .exe file.
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28. CONCLUSION
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29. (J)Ruby on Windows is already good enough to learn and play
with. We can get more Windows users to join this community.
Ruby's concise syntax and direct access to OLE objects
make it a powerful productivity tool on Windows.
Stick to JRuby/Java technologies if you really care about cross-
platform compatibilities of your programs.
Eventually, you would buy a Mac or setup a Linux machine if
developing (Rails) on Windows really hurts your productivity.
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30. Q&A
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