On Feb 4, 3:38 ¨Âí¬ ÍáôôèåÂïòçåóïî ¼èéâòéäíáôôè®®®Àóâãçìïâáì®îåô¾ wrote: > Joel VanderWerf wrote: > > Matthew Borgeson wrote: > >> Gtk (Would be nice on my Nokia n800 maemo) > >> Qt (My preference) > >> Tk (Seems to be the favorite of the Ruby folk) > > >> My question is which would be the easiest to learn. While I want to use> Qt (I just feel comfortable with its maturity)I am concerned by how hard > >> it will be to learn, considering I have no C++ background. > > > Does it affect your decision that Nokia just bought the company that > > makes Qt? > > > I've never developed anything with Qt, but it seems unlikely that you > > need to know any C++ to use the ruby bindings. > > I just wanted to thand everyone with your two cents; it helped me make a > decision as follows: > > While I appreciate the C# thoughts, I'll pass as well as on any Visual > Studio or Microsoft tools. Besides the MS limiting of the free flow of > information, I really don't want to spend any money on software; I don't > mind buying books but I just feel buying software is a waste of money as > far as a hobby is concerned; At least I can take books with me on the > train, inthe bathroom, et cetera... > > I downloaded the Agile Friday book on QtRuby (9 bucks) as well as the > tutorial from the Tk 8.5 website(Which actually does look better than > the versions before it)and have decided that I am going to try both on a > simple little 100-line, dose- calculating program I cobbled together and > see which is quicker to learn;Whichever one gives me the fewest > conceptual headaches wins :-). > > The Gtk documentation seemed a bit convoluted and filled with exceptions > when I paged through it the first time. I looked at shoes, but it seemed > a bit cutting edge for me. WxRuby seemed a bit convoluted as well. The > tutorials for Tk and Qt are organized and seem to be what I need. I > guess Ill post here once I have finished the two programs and let > everyonoe know how it goes... > > Thanks again for the feedback- > > Matthew F Borgesono > > -- > Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/. That's good that you narrowed down your search. I recall writing the same GUI app using a couple of different toolkits for Ruby. It was the same choices as yours --- Qt and Tk. Looking at the overall experience, coding time, and whatnot made it interesting comparing the two. I would up choosing the Qt version as my producction app. In this case it was for a handheld CRM app written for the Sharp Zaurus. Point of clarification on the Microsoft tools. You can download Visual C# 2005 Express edition and get a "lite" version of the VS 2005 for free. It lacks some of the features of the full-blown IDE but it's still very effective. Same with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. For testing out things all of it costs nothing. I wouldn't call any of it "crippleware" as it is very functional and good for testing out what you're looking to do. For my workplace I just had the company spring $200 USD for VS 2005 so that I could have all of the functionality at my fingertips. Good luck with your Ruby GUI development work. The code sure is a lot easier to read and pick back up again once you've left it for awhile (compared with C#)!