Opinion: Ruby + OpenOffice.org

[Daniel Carrera]

Hi guys,

I've been thinking about the idea of Ruby bindings for OpenOffice.org. I
am thinking that:

1. This might benefit OOo, by making OOo programming easier. Especially
if the bindings are well designed. Hopefully, this would attract more
programmers.


2. If (1) happens, that would benefit Ruby. OOo is one of the most
popular open source programs. It is widely used in Linux, Windows and
there is a Mac OS X port in progress. If OOo comes with a copy of Ruby,
then there would be millions of users with Ruby installed. Furthermore,
OOo is growing at an impressive rate. Last year Munich got 14,000 copies.
Later on China ordered a few millions. Last week an Indian copany ordered
another 15,000.

So there might be a growing market for OOo-related applications, which
Ruby could capitalize on. This could spark interest in Ruby as well.



I would like to hear some opinions on this. Do you guys think that Ruby
bindings for OOo would be worth it? Do you agree with my hypothesis?

I'm trying to figure out if this is a project worth doing. I'd like to
hear your thoughts on this.

Cheers,

 

[gabriele renzi]

il Tue, 10 Feb 2004 06:58:36 +0900, Daniel Carrera

Hi guys,

I've been thinking about the idea of Ruby bindings for OpenOffice.org.

do you mean something related to UNO ?
I'd love to see that, if my opinion matters

 

[shasckaw]

I agree.
Doesn't any project already exist for allowing such a thing?

Lio

 

[Daniel Carrera]

do you mean something related to UNO ?
I'd love to see that, if my opinion matters

Yes, that is exactly what I'm talking about. UNO.

UNO bindings could be used to add filters and write GUI programs that
could run along-side OOo. Let's say you think that OOo should have a
calendar, or a dictionary that uses the dict protocol to extract
definitions from the web. You could do that in Ruby and turn it into an
OOo add-on through the UNO bindings.

I think that's cool.


But ultimately, I'm not just interested on whether it's cool or not, but
also on whether this would bring developers to OOo and/or Ruby.

Cheers,

 

[shasckaw]

But ultimately, I'm not just interested on whether it's cool or not, but
also on whether this would bring developers to OOo and/or Ruby.

Hi!
I actually use OOo and ruby, but it is as they belonged to two different
worlds. There is already a binding for python distributed with OOo. But
I don't use it as I don't like python enough to do that. If only OOo
could offer ruby scripting, I'd certainly use it!

Lio

 

[Phil Tomson]

Hi guys,

I've been thinking about the idea of Ruby bindings for OpenOffice.org. I
am thinking that:

1. This might benefit OOo, by making OOo programming easier. Especially
if the bindings are well designed. Hopefully, this would attract more
programmers.


2. If (1) happens, that would benefit Ruby. OOo is one of the most
popular open source programs. It is widely used in Linux, Windows and
there is a Mac OS X port in progress. If OOo comes with a copy of Ruby,
then there would be millions of users with Ruby installed. Furthermore,
OOo is growing at an impressive rate. Last year Munich got 14,000 copies.
Later on China ordered a few millions. Last week an Indian copany ordered
another 15,000.

So there might be a growing market for OOo-related applications, which
Ruby could capitalize on. This could spark interest in Ruby as well.



I would like to hear some opinions on this. Do you guys think that Ruby
bindings for OOo would be worth it? Do you agree with my hypothesis?

I'm trying to figure out if this is a project worth doing. I'd like to
hear your thoughts on this.

Seems like a great idea. The only way you're going to find out if it's
worth doing is to build it. "If you build it, they will come" ;-)

Or, maybe your question is: "If I build it, will they come?"

Phil