Ruby Dev Summit 2024 Interview w/ Andy Maleh

Recently, I was interviewed for the 2024 Ruby Dev Summit, and a video podcast of the interview was just posted online and is available to watch for free for the next 24 hours (Fri, Feb 16 3pm ET till Sat, Feb 17 3pm ET). Click the "Watch Now" link under my name (Andy Maleh) to see the interview: 

https://topenddevs.com/summits/ruby-dev-summit-2024

Here is a direct link to my 2024 Ruby Dev Summit interview video (if you missed the 24h free period to watch the video, click on the free Apple Podcast link or Google Podcast link to listen to the interview for free):

https://topenddevs.com/summits/ruby-dev-summit-2024/interviews/andy-maleh

My 2024 Ruby Dev Summit interview was also published on the free podcast, Ruby Rogues:

https://topenddevs.com/podcasts/ruby-rogues/

Ruby Rogues Apple Podcast link for my 2024 Ruby Dev Summit interview:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ruby-dev-summit-andy-maleh/id1237406856?i=1000645630465

Ruby Rogues Google Podcast link for my 2024 Ruby Dev Summit interview:

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5yZWRjaXJjbGUuY29tL2M1NWNmMDJjLTdiMzYtNGY3My1iYjU2LTQ4Y2M1ZmMxODRhMA/episode/Nzg2NjY4YTUtOWM0My00ZmU2LWFhNTItZjA2Mzk0NGUyOGNi?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwiw5_Dn5reEAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQNg

Here is a list of links for topics mentioned during the interview as well as how to find me:

• GitHub: https://github.com/AndyObtiva
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyObtiva
• Montreal.rb Ruby Meetup Talk Video YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@montreal-rb
• Glimmer DSL for LibUI (by Andy Maleh) Wins Fukuoka Ruby 2022 Special Award after getting judged by Matz, creator of Ruby: https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2022/02/glimmer-dsl-for-libui-wins-fukuoka-ruby.html
• RubyConf 2022 Building Native GUI Apps in Ruby (by Andy Maleh): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bh4CnJqHyY
• Gladiator (Glimmer Editor / Ruby Code Editor): https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-cs-gladiator
• Glimmer (Ruby Desktop Development Parent Project for All Glimmer DSL Ruby gems, supporting SWT, LibUI, Tk, GTK, Fox Toolkit, wxWidgets, JavaFX, and Swing): https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer
• Glimmer DSL for SWT (Framework Supporting Desktop App Native Executable Packaging on Mac [APP/DMG/PKG], Windows [EXE/MSI], and Linux [DEB/RPM]): https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt
• Glimmer LibUI Graphs and Charts Ruby gem: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-libui-cc-graphs_and_charts
• Glimmer DSL for Web (Ruby in the Browser Web Frontend Framework): https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-web
• Opal Ruby (Ruby to JavaScript Transpiler): https://opalrb.com/
• Ruby WASM (WebAssembly port of CRuby): https://github.com/ruby/ruby.wasm
• Langchain.rb A.I. Ruby Gem (by Andrei Bondarev): https://github.com/andreibondarev/langchainrb
• DragonRuby (Ruby Gaming Toolkit, maintained by Amir Rajan): https://dragonruby.org/toolkit/game
• RubyMotion (Ruby Mobile Development Library, owned by DragonRuby): http://www.rubymotion.com/

Palm webOS Development First Impression

Yesterday, I got a chance to pair-program on a Palm Pre application with my colleague Roy Kolak, author of the iPhone music bookmarking application NoteWorthy.

The application being built connects to a web service in order to list media offerings available for playback on the device.

Given my non-existent experience with development on the Palm Pre or any mobile device for that matter, I was a little worried about the learning curve, but I was delightfully surprised by how productive I was in helping Roy with the application.

While a part of the reason is Roy's good pairing skills, like explaining things before jumping into code, listening to all questions and suggestions openly, and taking turns driving with the keyboard, another big factor was certainly the Mojo SDK, which enabled me to leverage my existing Javascript/XHTML/CSS web development skills to write code for the Palm webOS without having to learn any new languages.

Additionally, Roy factored the code in such a way that maximizes separation of business logic from the view, enabling us to do true test-driven development with JSSpec (a Javascript spin-off of Ruby's famous rspec). In fact, the Mojo SDK encourages code structure that follows a variation of the familiar MVC pattern.

I asked Roy what he thought of development on the webOS in comparison to the iPhone OS. His response was that it took him several months to truly get how things worked with iPhone development whereas it took him less than a month to figure out Palm webOS development.

Palm sure has a lot of inertia to go against with its platform as the iPhone is a lot more mature and has a very big following. But, given that development on the webOS takes a fraction of the time of that on the iPhone OS, will the platform pay off for Palm in the long term? Only time will tell.

In any case, thanks to Palm's engineers for building such an elegant platform for us developers to quickly deliver value to consumers.

iMeow

Some of my colleagues at work built a new iPhone app called iMeow (iTunes link).

The instructions for using iMeow are actually encoded in a poem included with the app:

"I like to have my ears and belly rubbed.
But, please don't step on my toes or pull my tail!!!
I'll cry for food if I'm hungry.
And whatever you do. Do. Not. Shake. Me."

Since I have a coffee-colored cat called Java, I decided to try out iMeow with her.

When I pressed the mouth of the iMeow cat to make it meow, my cat suddenly became alert and still. I did it a few times and then tossed the phone away. My cat started moving slowly towards the phone and then went and sniffed it.

Next experiment was to pull the iMeow's cat tail or step on its toes. The shrieks that came out of that sent chills down my cat's spine!!!

Finally, I shook the iPhone forcing the iMeow cat to give an aggressive fighting shriek and exhale (the one cats do right before clawing you). That freaked my cat out, but it was fast enough that my cat was able to get over it quickly.

In any case, I expect the app to get a number of updates in the future, so if you have a cat and you would like to test how it would react to another cat, give iMeow a spin.

My next experiment will be to test iMeow in the wild, either in a pet store, or at a public place to see how everyone will react. ;)