Ok, so I’m getting back into GUI development and I want to use Ruby.
Is Shoes still alive or should I not bother? It was the only Ruby GUI
that I ever liked.
Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
Is Shoes still alive
yes
I believe the site is http://shoes.heroku.com/ , but it appears to be
down at the moment.
There is also a Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/shoooes/
and the GitHub: GitHub - shoes/shoes-deprecated: Former repo for Shoes... see README for up to date locations!
Howard R. wrote:
Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
I believe the site is http://shoes.heroku.com/ , but it appears to be
down at the moment.There is also a Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/shoooes/
and the GitHub: GitHub - shoes/shoes-deprecated: Former repo for Shoes... see README for up to date locations!
Yes, I saw all of those sites.
- The last two Google Group posts were 5 and 20 days old, with zero
responses. - The last commit on the GitHub was 2010-01-04.
- The website is down with a “we’re fixing it” thread started two months
ago.
What exactly is is your definition of “alive”? O.o
On 28 February 2010 15:31, Kurtis Rainbolt-greene
[email protected]wrote:
Yes, I saw all of those sites.
- The last two Google Group posts were 5 and 20 days old, with zero
responses.- The last commit on the GitHub was 2010-01-04.
- The website is down with a “we’re fixing it” thread started two months
ago.
Just wanted to add that the website is very recently down, I went 3 days
ago
and everything was ok.
What exactly is is your definition of “alive”? O.o
But yeah, it doesn’t look very active, while you can’t know what
developers
do so easily.
Benoit D. wrote:
Just wanted to add that the website is very recently down, I went 3 days
ago and everything was ok.But yeah, it doesn’t look very active, while you can’t know what
developers do so easily.
If I knew something was happening I’d contribute my web design skills.
Honestly I just want an easy/fun GUI lib…But Shoes was really the
closest thing for me. 
Sadly I don’t think I have the skill to develop my own GUI lib.
On Feb 28, 2010, at 06:31 , Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
Yes, I saw all of those sites.
- The last two Google Group posts were 5 and 20 days old, with zero
responses.- The last commit on the GitHub was 2010-01-04.
- The website is down with a “we’re fixing it” thread started two months
ago.What exactly is is your definition of “alive”? O.o
Does any of that actually make the software less viable?
Ryan D. wrote:
Does any of that actually make the software less viable?
Yes, actually. Software that isn’t maintained or doesn’t have an active
community can be a real pain at first and down right unusable later.
For instance I had to really hunt to even find the download for the
precompiled version, and the tutorial.
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Kurtis Rainbolt-greene
[email protected] wrote:
Howard R. wrote:
Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
I believe the site is http://shoes.heroku.com/ , but it appears to be
down at the moment.There is also a Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/shoooes/
The mailing list has moved off google groups and onto librelist.
martin
Here’s an example of the “viability” (Happened 5 minutes ago):
01:21 < wrench> Has anyone had experience with shoes? I’m having
trouble using the mysql gem inside a shoes app.
[…]
01:22 < krainboltgreene> wrench: Otherwise, there’s a (kinda dead)
#shoes channel, #sneakers too.
[…]
01:23 < wrench> my mysql gem works great outside the shoes app – it
just wiggs out inside of it :(. I’ve tried both those channels with no
responses for 3 day.
On Feb 28, 2010, at 20:17 , Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
Ryan D. wrote:
Does any of that actually make the software less viable?
Yes, actually. Software that isn’t maintained or doesn’t have an active
community can be a real pain at first and down right unusable later.For instance I had to really hunt to even find the download for the
precompiled version, and the tutorial.
yes, well, that’s what happens when the author up and disappears off the
face of the earth taking everything he’s made with him. I don’t see that
as relevant.
Then again, if you’re needing to look for the precompiled version, maybe
you’re setting a much lower bar than I am. shrug
On Feb 28, 2010, at 22:20 , Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
responses for 3 day.
you didn’t ask that in #ruby-talk on freenode, the official ruby irc
channel, did you?
(not to imply that you would have gotten better help there… but still,
you have to ask in the right place).
There are a quarter million hits googling ruby shoes mysql… surely you
can find what you’re looking for.
Howard R. wrote:
Kurtis Rainbolt-greene wrote:
Is Shoes still alive
yesI believe the site is http://shoes.heroku.com/ , but it appears to be
down at the moment.There is also a Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/shoooes/
and the GitHub: GitHub - shoes/shoes-deprecated: Former repo for Shoes... see README for up to date locations!
Since December of the last year the shoes website is down.
As someone who’s tangentially involved with the shoooes community, I
feel
like I should drop off some comments here.
Shoooes is still very much being developed, but it seems like only two
people are really contributing at the moment. As someone else mentioned,
the
mailing list has technically moved to librelist, so the Google Group
doesn’t
get as many posts. Some people still do post there, however. I can’t
comment
on the irc channel, as I haven’t been on irc in about a month. But with
only
two really active developers, you can see how there wouldn’t be a large
amount of list traffic.
Just today there’s a discussion about what needs to be wrapped up for
the
release of Shoooes 3.
The only thing preventing shoooes from becoming a vibrant project again
is
the number of people who stopped using it because _why left.
http://shoes.heroku.com/downloads appears to be the spiritual successor
of
http://shooes.net
Many of the listed contributers have an active web presence and you
could
contact them directly.
On Mar 1, 2010, at 11:40 , Richard C. wrote:
Precompiled is pretty important in the context of what Shoes is for, but I
would say that if the project is to have any successful
future, it probably needs to be installable via gems now.
Huh? I thought shoes was its own ruby distro, which is why it doesn’t
use MRI-installed gems. Is this not the case?
On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Ryan D. [email protected]
wrote:
precompiled version, and the tutorial.
yes, well, that’s what happens when the author up and disappears off the
face of the earth taking everything he’s made with him. I don’t see that as
relevant.Then again, if you’re needing to look for the precompiled version, maybe
you’re setting a much lower bar than I am. shrug
Nobody Knows Shoes, the shoes book, is still being distributed. There is
also a tutorial integrated into the binary itself.
There’s been enough said about the scorched earth policy _why took to
his
own creations. At minimum it would have created
hell with pagerank and such. Documentation would now be a mess too. The
team
made some tough choices like bundling their
own Ruby runtime, that made sense when they had a lot of contributers,
that
are a bit high maintenance nowadays.
Precompiled is pretty important in the context of what Shoes is for, but
I
would say that if the project is to have any successful
future, it probably needs to be installable via gems now.
It would probably be a good idea if the Shoes team link here, where the
official site is now, as well as where the binaries can be
downloaded.
You are correct. Shoooes is entirely self-contained. Installing it via
gems
doesn’t make sense.
On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Ryan D. [email protected]
wrote:
My bad. Didn’t explain what I meant. Shoes won’t use gems from any other
installed Ruby runtime.
My point was that it would be a good option if we could install Shoes as
a
regular gem into a regular MRI installation.
It has come up before and it is probably a ton of work. But it all
depends
on who the Shoes user base is. It was targeted
at kids, but that needs a pretty serious non-coding support behind it,
like
what the original HacketyHack site was about.
The non-target audience was the Ruby community, who want to do wierd
things
like use Shoes for regular coding/work
tasks, so they need gem support and other normal ruby tasks.
For the first community, a simple installer makes more sense, that
reduces
any setup roadblocks. For the second community,
integration with standard Ruby environments makes more sense.
Who is being served by Shoes now?
I guess those were the points I was trying to make (badly).
regards,
Richard.
The Shoes/SQL IRC log was someone else, not me (I’m krainboltgreene).
I think what I’ll take from this thread is that if I want to use Shoes
for GUI development (And I do) I’m going to need to talk to the
developers directly and help where I can.
I appreciate the responses.
Kurtis, if you happen to run into wrench again, know that shoooes is
entirely self-contained…so the gems installed with your system ruby
will
not work.
see here for more:
http://wiki.github.com/shoes/shoes/clearing-up-the-whole-shoes-and-rubygems-deal