RUBY ON WINDOWSUp and Runing

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WHO AM I?

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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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WHY (ON WINDOWS)?

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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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You don’t want to fight against existing tools and workflows inside your company.

Picture courtesy of erix (CC) BY 2.0http://www.flickr.com/photos/erix/77966968/

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Broader user base, your target users are on Windows.

Picture courtesy of opacity (CC) BY-NC-ND 2.0http://www.flickr.com/photos/opacity/4483057728/

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WHAT RUBY?... BECAUSE

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Many Rubies (which on Win?)

◎ => Yes. ✕ => No. ▵ => Maybe. (planned to support Windows in the near future)

MRI JRuby IronRuby Rubinius MacRuby MagLev

◎ ◎ ◎ ▵ ✕ ✕

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BUT, Windows users don’t like to compile code!!!

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Ruby InstallerCompiled executables under MinGW32 dev environment

Both newest Ruby 1.8.7p352 and 1.9.2p290 are available

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JRuby InstallerRequire JRE (or JDK if you want to compile .rb into .class)

Ruby 1.8 compatible and Ruby 1.9 supported

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Rails InstallerAll in one package, including MRI Ruby, Rails, Git and DevKit

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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:\bin2.otherwise, use pik installer: https://github.com/vertiginous/pik/downloads

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pik help commands

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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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HOW TO ?

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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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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 toyour platform if “gem install xxx” failto detect the right gems for you.

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How about gem compatibility?

Most gems written in pure Ruby or shipped with precompiledC-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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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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WIN32OLE - examplehttps://gist.github.com/1173715

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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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Swing GUI - example(p1)https://github.com/changmason/id_maker

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Swing GUI - example(p2)import Java classes to current Ruby namespace

Ruby class can inherit Java class

setter in Java style

setter in Ruby style

event handling by a Ruby block

tell the swing worker to run in background

call Java’s constructor

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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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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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CONCLUSION

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(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 objectsmake 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 ifdeveloping (Rails) on Windows really hurts your productivity.

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Q & A

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