On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, Trans wrote:

To address the original poster's question first, I agree with Ed that QT 
is probably the best choice for a GUI toolkit right now.

For DB Access, Once can look at an ORM like AotiveRecord, Og, or Kansas, 
or a db abstraction layer like DBI, or something that's kind of in between 
them, like Sequel.  There are many choices, depending on what the needs 
actually are.

For obfusication, the prevailing advice is; "Don't bother."  However, 
there is Zen Obfusicator if you really want to obfusicate and are willing 
to pay the licensing fee.

You can also turn any of your classes into binary extensions using

http://ruby2cext.rubyforge.org/

And you can turn a Ruby app a .exe using

http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubyscript2exe/index.html

>>   In Ruby, when you need a database GUI app, there's another option
>> besides GUI toolkits and that is Rails.
>>
>> BTW, using Rails does not mean having it online, you can even
>> distribute it as a Rails server to be run on the client's computer
>> (but then you don't get the advantage of absolutely hidden code).
>
> My point is that there are plenty of other choices: Nitro, Camping,
> Webrick.
>
> Ruby != Rails.

Exactly.  The frameworks other than Rails that have some production 
userbase, and that each have some differences and advantages over Rails, 
include:

IOWA, Nitro, Ramaze, Merb, and Camping.  Rack should also be mentioned 
because while it is not a framework like those other, it is a 
meta-framework, providing much of the low level of functionality that all 
frameworks share.  Rack makes it pretty easy to develop custom apps that 
are not built on top of any particular framework.

So, when using Ruby, when you need a database GUI app, there's another 
option besides GUI toolkits and Rails, and that includes any of the above 
items.  The "Ruby way" isn't just Rails.


Kirk Haines