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Comment by gavingmiller | Hacker News Reader

The article isn't necessarily a far comparison: PhoneGap is cross platform, RubyMotion isn't. But it's nice to see someone holding up the different tools against one another.

His conclusion is more than correct for PhoneGap: PhoneGap feels like half-assing it.

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Disclaimer: I'm Matt, the other half of Iconoclast Labs.

That platform limitation of RubyMotion and the cross-platform nature of PhoneGap is acknowledged multiple times in the post.

From a business perspective, the cross platform nature of PhoneGap may make it a better choice for some projects but from our short comparison of the PhoneGap version of the app deployed on both platforms, iOS appears more promising* so that's why we chose to write a native version for iOS (plus, coming from more of a Ruby/web background and having no Obj-C experience, RubyMotion lowered the barrier to entry for that). It's been an interesting learning experience for sure.

[*] http://iconoclastlabs.com/cms/blog/posts/chatoms-app-store-e...

Can I include a C source file in RubyMotion project, compile it, and call the C functions directly from Ruby? That can be done easily with Obj-C.

I was looking for its answer for some time now. Our projects include a lot of C code.

Yes, you can vendor pure C libraries and use their APIs in a RubyMotion project (assuming the C interface is simple enough). Here is an example that uses the OpenGL C APIs: https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/Hel...

I'm honestly not sure, I have no experience with Objective-C but just from reading I think you'll still need to write an Objective-C interface/wrapper for your C code before it can be interfaced with RubyMotion.

Edit: A discussion topic on the newsgroup about it: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rubymotion/tn5p3g071OE/5jyJI... (you'll have to sign up I think)

While it is early days, it is worth mentioning (or at least taking note of) Ruboto: http://ruboto.org/

Between Ruboto and RubyMotion, I think there is a very real possibility that Ruby will become a significant player in the mobile space.

jballac, excellent point. If you post this as a comment on the page, we'll approve it ASAP, so that viewers from all origins will see it.

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