Ruby for mobile phones?

[cyberco]

Hi,

I've been doing a lot of work with Java J2ME and one thing that bars
real innovation is waiting for new API's that open up the phones
functionality. And if these API are finally released it takes years
before they are sufficiently spread to build applications with them.
NOKIA realized this and started to port PYTHON to Symbian (a popular OS
for mobile terminals). This allows programmers to easily access the
phones native functionality. Unfortunately this is still a project in
its pre-alpha state.

But maybe that's fortunate for the Ruby community. Wouldn't it be great
if Ruby was ported to mobile (aka limited) terminals as well? That
would make it more fun to develop for mobile phones and, more
important, it opens up a very big and lucrative market for Ruby
developers! Ruby could really shine in this area. It could really boost
Ruby's popularity.

Just my 2 cents.
CyBerco

 

[Michel Claveau - abstraction méta-galactique non t]

Hi !

Info : Python and Nokia, is only for the series-60.
And what do you want to know : Ruby on Symbian ? Or Ruby on
Windows-mobile-2003 (or 2005) ?

@-salutations

 

[cyberco]

Info : Python and Nokia, is only for the series-60.

And what do you want to know : Ruby on Symbian ? Or Ruby on
Windows-mobile-2003 (or 2005) ?

@-salutations
Michel Claveau

Hi Michel,

Yes, Nokia is currently only targeting their series 60 but will target
their other models based on Symbian as well (as far as I know). My idea
was that it would be pretty cool to have Ruby available on the most
popular mobile OSs such as Symbian (powering most of the Nokia's and
SonyEricssons) and Windows Mobile. I'm no expert in C++ so I wouldn't
know if that is even possible, but I suspect so. At least Symbian is
regular C++ (again, afaik), so that would be a logical starting point.
Cheers,
CyBerco

 

[Shashank Date]

Hi Antonio,Cyberco,

Cyberco you are right, there should be Ruby for mobile devices. Anyone
who wants to start a new, great project?

Are you volunteering? One way to do this to front-end OPL i.e. write a
subset of Ruby which translates to OPL.

I am also interested in knowing if any such effort has been done in the
Japanese world ?

While Googling for this I came across a Russian thread titled "Ruby
under Symbian":

http://lists.altlinux.ru/pipermail/ruby/2004-May/001376.html
http://lists.altlinux.ru/pipermail/ruby/2004-May/001377.html

Babelfish translation did not give me much of any idea of what it was 'bout.

I am interested ...let me know.

Cheers,

-- shanko

 

[Alexey Verkhovsky]

While Googling for this I came across a Russian thread titled "Ruby
under Symbian":

Just one guy asking the same question as you are asking. The answer was "no"

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

 

[Shashank Date]

Just one guy asking the same question as you are asking. The answer was
"no"

Ok. Thanks Alexey ,
-- shanko

 

[Kero]

But maybe that's fortunate for the Ruby community. Wouldn't it be great

if Ruby was ported to mobile (aka limited) terminals as well? That
would make it more fun to develop for mobile phones and, more
important, it opens up a very big and lucrative market for Ruby
developers! Ruby could really shine in this area. It could really boost
Ruby's popularity.

I have Ruby running on an iPAQ under linux.
If the iPAQ with built-in GSM were to be supported by linux, life should
be easy (but it isn't, yet).

Linux phones in general will allow you easier porting. Some things:
- you'll need a cross compilation toolchain. gcc is your best chance.
- the GUI-toolkit should (probably) have a ruby binding already.
- a CPU of a few 100 MHz is desirable (my 200 MHz strongarm is ok-ish),
the RAM will then be sufficient, too
- some way to put the binary on the phone (but with communication
possibilities, SD cards and whatever, that should not be a problem,
really (as it is for smaller/embedded devices)

I am tempted to check out the E2800+ myself... (available in Europe, since
two weeks or so

+--- Kero ----------------------- kero@chello@nl ---+
| all the meaningless and empty words I spoke |
| Promises -- The Cranberries |
+--- M38c --- http://httpd.chello.nl/k.vangelder ---+

 

[Shad Sterling]

How 'bout Ruby for Palm Pilots? Or is that already available? I'd
personally find much more use for it there than on my phone.

- Shad

 

[cyberco]

| Linux phones in general will allow you easier porting. Some things:

Hmm... there are not many Linux phones out there. Aiming the linux
platform would mean a life of obscurity for Ruby Light (LRuby?)

| - a CPU of a few 100 MHz is desirable (my 200 MHz strongarm is
ok-ish),
the RAM will then be sufficient, too

Most of the current phones are already much faster than that, so that
shouldn't be a problem.

Cheers,
CyBerco

 

[cyberco]

How 'bout Ruby for Palm Pilots? Or is that already available? I'd

personally find much more use for it there than on my phone.

I personally feel that PalmPilot support would be great as well, but
the marketshare of PDA's (compared to mobile phones) and PalmOS devices
in particular is dropping like a rock. So that's not a very lucrative
market anymore, if you ask me. The rising stars are Windows Mobile (who
would have guessed?), Symbian and Linux.

Cheers,
CyBerco

 

[Thursday]

I personally feel that PalmPilot support would be great as well, but
the marketshare of PDA's (compared to mobile phones) and PalmOS devices
in particular is dropping like a rock. So that's not a very lucrative
market anymore, if you ask me. The rising stars are Windows Mobile (who
would have guessed?), Symbian and Linux.

Cheers,
CyBerco

PalmOS is experiencing pretty strong growth in mobile phones. Why carry
both a PDA and a phone when the two can be combined?

 

[Phil Tomson]

Hi,

I've been doing a lot of work with Java J2ME and one thing that bars
real innovation is waiting for new API's that open up the phones
functionality. And if these API are finally released it takes years
before they are sufficiently spread to build applications with them.
NOKIA realized this and started to port PYTHON to Symbian (a popular OS
for mobile terminals). This allows programmers to easily access the
phones native functionality. Unfortunately this is still a project in
its pre-alpha state.

But maybe that's fortunate for the Ruby community. Wouldn't it be great
if Ruby was ported to mobile (aka limited) terminals as well? That
would make it more fun to develop for mobile phones and, more
important, it opens up a very big and lucrative market for Ruby
developers! Ruby could really shine in this area. It could really boost
Ruby's popularity.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just can't imagine trying to type in
Python code into something with a small display like a mobile phone.
Imagine keeping track of the indentation ;-)
(OK, I suspect they type the Python code on a regular PC/Mac type machine
and then download it to the phone, but still...)


Ruby would seem to be a nice fit for this application.

Phil

 

[cyberco]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just can't imagine trying to type
in

Python code into something with a small display like a mobile phone.

Imagine keeping track of the indentation ;-)
(OK, I suspect they type the Python code on a regular PC/Mac type machine
and then download it to the phone, but still...)

Exactly. As with Java (J2ME) you don't write the code on the phone but
simply download it.

Ruby would seem to be a nice fit for this application.

Exactly. Even if Ruby only offers a very limited set of functionality,
if it offers something that Java doesn't (like access to the native
resources such as the phonebook, the filesystem, network information,
etc.) it will certainly become successful in my eyes.

Cheers,
CyBerco