[Kde-bindings] Ruby GUI Survey

Alex Fenton aff28 at cam.ac.uk
Tue Nov 11 15:38:03 UTC 2008


Hello

I'm interested in getting an up-to-date picture of the use of Ruby for 
GUI development. Below's a draft survey that I'm planning to put up. 
Before I do, I'm seeking the comments of toolkit developers.

If this is of interest to others involved in developing your toolkit, 
forward to them. If it's of no interest, forward to your Trash.

Feel free to comment on any aspect of the survey design. I'll make the 
quantitative results public. I don't plan to publish comments on 
specific toolkits, but will be forward them to the toolkit's developers.

I plan to set it up on this weekend, and run it for two weeks. I'll be 
publicising it on comp.lang.ruby, and please feel free to post it on the 
mailing lists / forums for your toolkit.

alex

*** RUBY GUI SURVEY ***

== RUBY PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE ==

Do you currently use Ruby for GUI programming?

Have you ever used Ruby for GUI programming?

How long have you been programming Ruby?

How long have you been using Ruby for GUI development?

What other purposes do you use Ruby for?
- Web development
- System tools
- Scientific programming
- Other ...

== GUI PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT ==

Which of these settings do you work in?

- Working alone, for fun, interest or curiosity
- Working alone, on free/open software
- Working alone, on commercial software
- Working in a company, on free/open-source software
- Working in a company, on in-house tools
- Working in a company, on commercial software

Which platforms do you develop GUI software in Ruby ON?

- Mac OS X
- Linux
- Windows 2000/XP/Vista
- Other ...

Which platforms do you develop GUI software in Ruby FOR?

- Mac OS X
- Linux
- Windows 2000/XP/Vista
- Mobile / embedded
- Other ...

Which ruby versions do you use
- Ruby 1.8
- Ruby 1.9
- JRuby
- MacRuby
- Rubinius
- IronRuby
- Other ...

Which environment do you prefer for programming Ruby?

- Text editor (vim, emacs, textmate etc)
- IDE (Eclipse, NetBeans, RubyInSteel, XCode etc)

If you want, write in your preferred development environment...

Do you use any GUI designer / RAD tools?
If so, which...

== CHOOSING A TOOLKIT ==

Please rate these features in their importance to you in choosing a
toolkit [random order, scale 1-7]

* Ease of installation
* Ease of distributing apps to end users
* Range of features / widgets
* Availability for relevant platforms
* Appearance / aesthetics on relevant platforms
* API programming style
* Licence compatible with open-source development
* Licence compatible with commercial development
* Maturity / stability
* Community support via mailing lists, forums
* Accessibility features - eg for the visually impaired
* Availability of extra tools (eg designers, RAD/IDE tools)
* Web-based documentation & learning material
* Paper-based documentation & learning material
* Familiarity of toolkit from using in other languages
* Internationalisation support
* Performance

== CHOICE OF TOOLKITS ==

Which of these toolkits have you EVER looked into (read website / docs)?
- Ruby Tk
- FxRuby
- WxRuby
- QtRuby
- Ruby-GNOME2
- RubyCocoa
- Shoes
- JRuby + SWING
- Other ...

== FOR EACH TOOLKIT LOOKED INTO ==

Have you ever installed and used XXX?

Do you currently use XXX?

Please give an overall rating for how well you think XXX meets your
requirements. (1 - 10)

Comments ...

== CURRENT CHOICE ==

Which toolkit, if any, is your PREFERRED toolkit?

(as above)

Comments ...

== INVOLVEMENT IN GUI TOOLKIT DEVELOPMENT ==

Have you ever participated in discussions (mailing lists, forums) on 
toolkits

Have you ever contributed code to a toolkit?

== THE FUTURE ==

Which of these do you think most impedes the use of Ruby for GUI
development?

- Maturity of toolkits
- Installation difficulties
- Documentation for toolkits
- Performance of Ruby in GUI apps
- AVailability of design / RAD tools
- Difficulty of distributing ruby apps

Do you think the standard Ruby library should include a GUI toolkit?

[ FOR THOSE NOT CURRENTLY USING RUBY FOR GUI ]
== WHY NOT RUBY FOR GUI ==

Which of the following reasons explain why you don't use Ruby for GUI
programming?

- Not interested in GUI programming at all
- No Ruby GUI toolkit satisfies my requirements
- Already happy with another language for GUI programming
- Ruby performance too slow

[ ALL RESPONDENTS ]
== GUI PROGRAMMING IN OTHER LANGUAGES ==

Have you ever done GUI programming in other languages? If so, which

C / C++
Java
Python
Tcl
Perl
Lua
Other ...

== DEMOGRAPHICS ==

Which country?

Which languages do you speak reasonably fluently?
(top 10 internet languages + other)
English
French
Japanese
Chinese
Spanish
Portuguese
German
Italian
Arabic
Korean
Others ...

And which is your first language?
(as above)





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