Ruby's Killer App - every language has one

[Ruby Script]

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?

For Python, there's SCons and a few others.

What are some possible apps we can create in Ruby that will be OUR
community's killer app?

A modern ViewCVS perhaps? A cross-platform package manager that unites
win32, linux and *bsd? What is realistic, much-needed and compelling
that we can produce within 12 months?

 

[Brian Wisti]

SCons? Sadly, I've never heard of that project. I've
heard of Zope, so I always thought that was the
"killer app" for Python.

Based on my limited experience of people looking over
my shoulder and going "ooh, what's that? Where'd you
get it?" I'd have to say FreeRIDE. Be aware that my
audience consisted almost entirely of
beginner-to-intermediate programmers. Other folks
probably get different results depending on who they
are talking to

Kind Regards,

Brian Wisti

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who
don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?

For Python, there's SCons and a few others.

What are some possible apps we can create in Ruby
that will be OUR
community's killer app?

A modern ViewCVS perhaps? A cross-platform package
manager that unites
win32, linux and *bsd? What is realistic,
much-needed and compelling
that we can produce within 12 months?

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[vruz]

I thought Zope was Python's killer app ?
Some could arguably say Bit Torrent (the original client)

Now if we consider "languages" at large...
Who says every language should have a killer app ?
What's Visual Basic's killer app for instance ?
What's Java's killer app ?
And that of C# ?

and... on... and on... and on

 

[Chad Fowler]

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?

For Python, there's SCons and a few others.

What are some possible apps we can create in Ruby that will be OUR
community's killer app?

A modern ViewCVS perhaps? A cross-platform package manager that unites
win32, linux and *bsd? What is realistic, much-needed and compelling
that we can produce within 12 months?

Rails (http://rubyonrails.org) seems to be starting to fit your
definition these days. I've heard quite a few reports of people
migrating to it even if they aren't Ruby programmers.


The Rails irc channel (#[email protected]) has consistently had
about 40 people in it since it was setup. In contrast it took us a
couple of years to do that with the main Ruby channel
(#[email protected]).

Chad

 

[Phil Tomson]

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?

For Python, there's SCons and a few others.

Don't know what that is.

What are some possible apps we can create in Ruby that will be OUR
community's killer app?

A modern ViewCVS perhaps?

I'm hearing a lot about Subversion lately being the CVS replacement.
Maybe try to do something like ViewCVS, but for Subversion. If it turns
out that Subversion 'replaces' CVS, then you're on the ground floor.

A cross-platform package manager that unites
win32, linux and *bsd?

Is that possible?

What is realistic, much-needed and compelling
that we can produce within 12 months?

Ruby as an embedded (or add-on) scripting language for some popular tool?

Phil

 

[James Britt]

I thought Zope was Python's killer app ?
Some could arguably say Bit Torrent (the original client)

Now if we consider "languages" at large...
Who says every language should have a killer app ?

Well, it helps a language gain mind share, which can lead to market
share, which can lead to developers getting paid to use the language.

What's Visual Basic's killer app for instance ?

It was the IDE, and its ability to quickly crank out Window GUI apps.

What's Java's killer app ?

First it was the craplet, then app servers.

And that of C# ?
Java(tm).


and... on... and on... and on

Exactly. There are thousands of languages, but only a handful capture
popular attention. Those that do tend to do so because of a mix of
major corporate backing and a notable app/framework/tool set.


James

 

[Ruby Script]

Don't know what that is.




I'm hearing a lot about Subversion lately being the CVS replacement.
Maybe try to do something like ViewCVS, but for Subversion. If it turns
out that Subversion 'replaces' CVS, then you're on the ground floor.

Exactly my thoughts--ViewCVS (dev) supports subversion but the paradigm
is different so the marriage isn't perfect.

SCons is to GNU Make, what Subversion 1.2 will be to CVS.

SCons is only at v0.96 but already hugely popular with folks replacing
their overly-complex, recursive makefiles. When 1.0 is released, it
will make huge waves.

Boost::Build v2 (with bjam) is really nice too but the documentation
truly sucks.

 

[Lennon Day-Reynolds]

There's already a pretty good Subversion web front-end out there: Trac
(http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/). It includes other project
management functionality like a ticket tracker and wiki, as well.

Guess what language it's implemented in?

...that's right, Python. Those guys are just everywhere these days.

Right now, my vote for a potential killer app would probably go to
Instiki -- it may be one of a thousand Wiki clones, but it's probably
both the easiest to get set up and least offensive to the eyes of any
package I've tried.

 

[Phil Tomson]

Exactly my thoughts--ViewCVS (dev) supports subversion but the paradigm
is different so the marriage isn't perfect.

SCons is to GNU Make, what Subversion 1.2 will be to CVS.

SCons is only at v0.96 but already hugely popular with folks replacing
their overly-complex, recursive makefiles. When 1.0 is released, it
will make huge waves.

Ah, now I recall something about SCons. How does it compare to rake?
Could Ruby play in that space via rake?

Phil

 

[Sascha Ebach]

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?
For Python, there's SCons and a few others.

What are some possible apps we can create in Ruby that will be OUR
community's killer app?

It would be an app that is of use not only to programmers. I am thinking
of a cms with the functionality of drupal/ezpublish (php) for example.
Some app that would make lots of ppl want to install and use it and also
make many developers want to extend and customize it to their needs.

A modern ViewCVS perhaps? A cross-platform package manager that unites
win32, linux and *bsd? What is realistic, much-needed and compelling
that we can produce within 12 months?

Something like that could be moderately successful, but IMO something
like I mentioned above will be uncomparably more successful. Tools for
developers are nice, but if you want to boost the popularity of a
language you really have to develop something that is very mainstream
and better yet that developers can earn money from offering support
services and the like.

I don't think that such a cms would take 12 months to do. Not for a
first usable version I think. And, it would probably be doable in a
third of the amount of code as in many other languages.

That is why I started such a project. I am in planning / prototyping
stage, so there is not any code to share, yet. I am hoping to go open
source with this by the end of the year. We will see. I am suspecting
that other ppl are (at least) planning to do something similiar. It
would be nice to talk to those ppl. Maybe we need a wiki called Project
"RubyCMS". What is funny, if you look at all the solutions written in
php/java/python and what not, that there is not _one_ such package for
Ruby. Someone besides me _must_ be planning such a thing...

I will be using Rails for it since it simply is the best framework
around for this kind of job in terms of documentation and ease of use.
(Thanks David)

 

[Thomas Adam]

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?

Who cares? As some others have noted, we could list the other thousands of
languages and ask the same question, but to what avail? Indeed, people
that use Ruby use it because of the merits they like, and usually not
because they like some app "better" than others. To choose a language in
that manner to get it recognised is plain stupid.

While this is Debian-specific, 'apt-listbugs' is probably a common one
many people use and don't realise it is written in Ruby.

-- Thomas Adam

=====
"The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net
"TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net

"<shrug> We'll just save up your sins, Thomas, and punish
you for all of them at once when you get better. The
experience will probably kill you. "

-- Benjamin A. Okopnik (Linux Gazette Technical Editor)





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[Rando Christensen]

Some could arguably say Bit Torrent (the original client)

More than just the original. theshad0w's expirimental client, now known
as bittornado, is just a heavily modified version of the original
client. A handful of the nicer, prettier versions of bittorrent (ABC
comes to mind immediately, but there are a few others) use bittornado
as their core.

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Right now, my vote for a potential killer app would probably go to
Instiki -- it may be one of a thousand Wiki clones, but it's probably
both the easiest to get set up and least offensive to the eyes of any
package I've tried.

You should try Ruwiki when 0.8.1 comes out (both gemmable and
RPA-able). Instiki *only* works as a WEBrick servlet right now, and
even if a non-WEBrick servlet comes out, it will still require a
permanent process running somewhere to manage the Madaleine process.
Ruwiki doesn't require this. It's not feature complete -- I'm not able
to make Ruwiki my full-time development job for any length of time --
but it does offer significant advantages over Instiki (which, I admit,
*is* easy to use -- but Ruwiki has been a two-step wiki since before
Instiki came out

-austin

 

[Dave Burt]

+1.

Solid comments; good initiative; Rails is good, too; looking forward to
seeing some fruit.

Dave



.... a cms with the functionality of drupal/ezpublish (php) for example.
Some app that would make lots of ppl want to install and use it and also
make many developers want to extend and customize it to their needs.
....
I don't think that such a cms would take 12 months to do. Not for a
first usable version I think. And, it would probably be doable in a
third of the amount of code as in many other languages.

That is why I started such a project. ...

I will be using Rails for it since it simply is the best framework
around for this kind of job in terms of documentation and ease of use.
(Thanks David)

 

[George Marrows]

A modern ViewCVS perhaps?

In a related area, CVSspam [1] is very nice (though its name might
suggest otherwise . I particularly like the way it highlights
exactly which part of a line changed.

-- George

[1] http://www.badgers-in-foil.co.uk/projects/cvsspam/

[Hmmm .. I wonder about a meeting of the badgers in foil and Why's
chunky bacon foxes .. perhaps in the next installment of the poignant
guide?]

 

[Øyvind Kolås]

Which ruby app is so compelling that people who don't even intend on
programming ruby are willing to install it?

I'm just learning ruby, but my first ruby project is probably a bit
larger than most "first projects". I am working on a non linear video
editor and compositing application.

The engine itself is written in C, but I have recently started working
on binding it to ruby my initial attempts are located at

http://freedesktop.org/~pippin/aluminium/ruby/

(I'd appreciate comments if I am going against the ruby way in the
api's I'm providing)

http://freedesktop.org/~pippin/aluminium/

contains general information about the framework, and also some
screenshots of the old c based editor. The c version used gtk+ and
gtkcairo for the userinterface, I want to stick with those choices to
keep the amount of unfamiliar interfaces down.

Another media framework that focuses on television broadcasting
http://mlt.sourceforge.net/ is also currently developing it's ruby
bindings.

/pippin

 

[Javier Leija]

I like the idea. I spent most of last week searching for a good CMS
and I was disapointed that all the good ones like mambo, wordpress and
tikiwiki are developed in PHP. Over the weekend I had to learn a
little bit of PHP, enough to develop my own wiki component for mambo
(a mambot as they call their plugins). But you know what? I din't like
PHP. It does the job and it is simple enough if you know C++ but it
just doesn't feel anything like Ruby. However I was very impressed by
the architecture in mambo (www.mamboserver.com). Those guys did a
great job with mambo. It is very very easy to install, to add plugins
or new components, to develop extensions, etc. and, it looks great. I
just wish that they had implemented it in Ruby.

I think Ruby with a clean CMS architecture like the one in mambo could
really make a difference for users and developers.

I'd like to know how your efforts are going and maybe even help you
with some of the implementation. So please keep me posted.

Javier

 

[Sascha Ebach]

Hello Javier,

thanks for your interest. I am working on the CMS as time permits and
Rails lets me develop it very fast. I am trying to get my development
time funded by clients, because than i could really do full time
development on it. I know if that can happen by the end of September.
We'll see...

I like the idea. I spent most of last week searching for a good CMS
and I was disapointed that all the good ones like mambo, wordpress and
tikiwiki are developed in PHP. Over the weekend I had to learn a
little bit of PHP, enough to develop my own wiki component for mambo
(a mambot as they call their plugins). But you know what? I din't like
PHP. It does the job and it is simple enough if you know C++ but it
just doesn't feel anything like Ruby. However I was very impressed by
the architecture in mambo (www.mamboserver.com). Those guys did a
great job with mambo. It is very very easy to install, to add plugins
or new components, to develop extensions, etc. and, it looks great. I
just wish that they had implemented it in Ruby.

Yes, mambo is a nice piece of software (feature wise). It has been
around pretty long. I am looking at other packages for inspiration, too.

- ezPublish
- drupal
- mambo
- Plone
- and others

By inspiration I mean looking at features that are useful and make
working with the cms a pleasure. Featurewise I would like to have the
following:

- Versioning
- Workflows
- Tree based contentobjects and navigation (s. ezPublish or drupal) and
automatic sitemaps
- multiple websites per installation
- shop functionality
- multiple uses, i.e. every installation should be configurable to be a
mixture of a blog/wiki/shop/news-site/portal/... (install ezPublish to
see what i mean)
- WYSIWYG editor for textareas (Kupu) and/or full page editing via
bitflux editor (mozilla only)
- modular (of course) plugins etc.
- really great UI, probably making use of XMLHttpRequest (like Gmail) s.
http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=191776
- and, show that you can do all this with 1/5 of the code u would need
with Java
- make it Open Source

among other things. I only have the tree based navigation figured out
yet (and a very early UI), but I have only started. If I can get funded
I plan to implement much of this functionality _this_ year. I have a
good feeling about this, but don't hold me to it

I think Ruby with a clean CMS architecture like the one in mambo could
really make a difference for users and developers.

It always leaves me completely baffled that there is not _one_ such
package for Ruby. But I don't exactly know what you mean by
architecture. I think you mean the way you can work with the product
(workflow)

I'd like to know how your efforts are going and maybe even help you
with some of the implementation. So please keep me posted.

Thanks for the offer. I am looking into rails right now and so far it
proofed to be really useful for what I plan. When I (really) got the
hang of it I will probably put up a project website. We'll see how it
goes from there. But I want to have a little head start to define
architecture and make the CMS fairly usable before posting the first
version. I will surely announce it here if all goes well.

The next 2 weeks are client projects ...

Cheers

 

[Will Drewry]

Hello Javier,

thanks for your interest. I am working on the CMS as time permits and
Rails lets me develop it very fast. I am trying to get my development
time funded by clients, because than i could really do full time
development on it. I know if that can happen by the end of September.
We'll see...



Yes, mambo is a nice piece of software (feature wise). It has been
around pretty long. I am looking at other packages for inspiration, too.

- ezPublish
- drupal
- mambo
- Plone
- and others

By inspiration I mean looking at features that are useful and make
working with the cms a pleasure. Featurewise I would like to have the
following:

- Versioning
- Workflows
- Tree based contentobjects and navigation (s. ezPublish or drupal) and
automatic sitemaps
- multiple websites per installation
- shop functionality
- multiple uses, i.e. every installation should be configurable to be a
mixture of a blog/wiki/shop/news-site/portal/... (install ezPublish to
see what i mean)
- WYSIWYG editor for textareas (Kupu) and/or full page editing via
bitflux editor (mozilla only)
- modular (of course) plugins etc.
- really great UI, probably making use of XMLHttpRequest (like Gmail) s.
http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=191776
- and, show that you can do all this with 1/5 of the code u would need
with Java
- make it Open Source

among other things. I only have the tree based navigation figured out
yet (and a very early UI), but I have only started. If I can get funded
I plan to implement much of this functionality _this_ year. I have a
good feeling about this, but don't hold me to it


It always leaves me completely baffled that there is not _one_ such
package for Ruby. But I don't exactly know what you mean by
architecture. I think you mean the way you can work with the product
(workflow)


Thanks for the offer. I am looking into rails right now and so far it
proofed to be really useful for what I plan. When I (really) got the
hang of it I will probably put up a project website. We'll see how it
goes from there. But I want to have a little head start to define
architecture and make the CMS fairly usable before posting the first
version. I will surely announce it here if all goes well.

The next 2 weeks are client projects ...

Cheers

Just to throw in my two cents - it's probably worthwhile to check out
Apache Cocoon and Apache Lenya for inspiration as well. The framework
is very, very cool, and I would love to see that style of XML pipeline
implemented in Ruby. I hacked on Lenya (with Mozile) at my last job,
and I enjoyed it quite a bit. (If only it'd been in ruby!) I did,
however, spend a considerable amount of time removing all of the XSLT
and replacing it with DOM transformations...

cheers,
wad

 

[Javier Leija]

Excellent! The feature set looks good. This may be the killer app.
mod_ruby needs to become standard too.

Just to clarify on these lines from you post:

It always leaves me completely baffled that there is not _one_ such
package for Ruby. But I don't exactly know what you mean by
architecture. I think you mean the way you can work with the product
(workflow)

By architecture I meant the framework that mambo developers use to
create new extensions to it. It is really easy to write a new "mambot"
that changes content. As an example, in mambo, if you place a php file
under the mabots directory, it automatically loaded and executed. A
content object is passed to it so that you can modify it before it
gets sent to browser. So for me it was very easy to write a content
"wikifier" because I didn't have to worry about anything else other
than writing the wikifier itself and of course, following their code
template to write a mambot. This is what I mean by architecture:
extensibility and cleanliness.

Here is something that I think mambo guys could have done better, and
it might be of your interest too. Some of the non-core
components/extensions that individuals write manage their content
their own way: with no framework hooking ability and in separate DB
tables. Then when somebody else like me writes a wikifier or a textile
markup we have no way of intercepting the content from their
components. As a result there are some wiki-enabled sections and
others that are not; there are sections of content like forums where
the markup syntax is different from the one of News; and when you
search with one search engine it only searches within one section. My
point is that a single abstraction/object that represents text content
could be used for any section and it could be stored in the same
location so that content modifers like wikifiers and markups can
change all content in the site (from news and forums and whatnot) by
using the same framework hook, and search engines could find any text
in the site by just querying one table (or one file). Furthermore,
this object needs to be fairly complete so taht indivdual developers
like me don't feel the need to hack DD tables or someone else's code
in order to add our functionality in it. Basically every operation to
retrieve and save (manage) any text content needs to be clearly
available through the object and proper framework hooks/callbacks.

Well, that's all.

Good luck with your projects and have fun with CMS in Ruby. Do you
have a name for it yet?

Thanks,

Javier