Ruby Programming on Mac OS X Leopard

Written on November 29, 2007 by Eka Riyanti

Ruby is one the most popular scripting languages that, with Mac OS X version 10.5 (Leopard), is becoming even more significant alternative for software development on Mac OS X, especially with additional support for bridges between the scripting languages and Cocoa and Open Scripting Architecture (OSA).

Ruby and Python are interpreted object-oriented scripting languages. As interpreted languages, you can change and run code immediately, without having to wait for the code to compile. Python and Ruby also have all the features one would expect to find in dynamic object-oriented programming languages, such as inheritance, encapsulation, introspection, and subclassing. The syntax of both languages is simple, compact, and consistent, and supports both regular expressions and sophisticated string manipulations. Memory management is built into both languages; garbage collectors automatically free memory occupied by unneeded objects. With both Python and Ruby you can call operating system routines directly. They offer ways to extend their native capabilities, including C-language interfaces.

The Standard Ruby Package included by Mac OS X:

On Mac OS X Ruby includes more than the language interpreter and documentation and testing utilities. A standard installation offers the following Ruby-related services, frameworks, and protocols:

• RubyGems—A package manager for Ruby
• rake—A make-like utility for Ruby scripts
• Rails (or Ruby on Rails)—A framework for creating database-backed web applications with designs conforming to the Model-View-Controller pattern
  For more information on Ruby on Rails, go to http://developer.apple.com/tools/rubyonrails.html.
• Mongrel—A fast HTTP library and server used for hosting Ruby web applications
• Capistrano—A framework and utility for executing commands in parallel on multiple remote machines, via SSH, primarily to expedite the deployment of web applications
• Ferret—A search engine
• OpenID—A service that provides OpenID identification to Ruby programs
• sqlite3-ruby—A module that enables Ruby scripts to interact with a SQLite3 database
• libxml-ruby—A module for reading and writing XML documents using Ruby
• dnssd—Ruby interface for DNS Service Discovery (that is, Bonjour)
• net-ssh and net-sftp—Pure Ruby implementations of the SSH and SFTP client protocols

For further details visit developer page at Apple.

Posted in Cool, GUI, Rails, Ruby, Tools, Web 2.0