Running Ruby on Windows Phone

Ruby on Windows Phone

If you are interested in modern languages you have got to get this for your Windows Phone.  For a mere two pounds you get a Ruby runtime and editor which lets you create and run programs on the device itself. Let me be clear about this; it means you can create brand new programs and store and run them on your phone, without using a PC or anything else. Astonishing.

The installation comes with a bunch of programs including a Twitter client and a passable Tetris clone.

I’ve not played with Ruby much, but I’m always fancied having a go,  and now I have the perfect platform. You can find out more at http://www.iron7.com/

Comments

[Maurice]

Cool

[MechaCrash]

Ruby was the first language I programmed in. Even though it's been a while, I think I could probably play about with this.

I do wonder what its performance level is though...

[Stuart]

Hello!
Thanks for blogging about my app :)
I've got a few more samples underway - I seem to be in storyboard and animation land at the moment - you can keep up with the latest scripts I've written on:
http://script.iron7.com/Script/UserScripts?userName=stuart
Thanks again for blogging about me - good luck playing with the app!
Stuart

[Stuart]

MechaCrash

Performance of Ruby seems to be very good on the phone - so far, it's impressed and surprised me.

For "general" app purposes - e.g. reacting to user input, processing small amounts of text, doing small-to-medium size maths calculations, etc then the scripting performs well.

However, if you hit more very serious maths, then the Ruby is definitely slower than the compiled code - I guess because of the time required to use "dynamic" types for every single math operation. One of the demos I've written is a Mandelbrot set visualizer - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTIROShwAQ4
I've now also ported this back from Ruby to C# - looking at the results, then the C# is approx 3 times as fast as the Ruby.

The one other place where I know the app hits performance is the on-device editor - this is written in javascript and Pocket IE7 struggles when apps hit a few hundred lines in length. Hopefully the future WP7/IE9 release will solve this problem.

Stuart

[MechaCrash]

@Stuart

Sounds pretty good. Definitely one of the apps ill be getting when my phone arrives (getting the omnia 7 - that screen is just too nice).

I'm currently using the emulator for apps and so havnt really done much myself, but it seems the windows phone is far more flexible than i originally expected, which is great :D

I'll definitely keep looking at your site for updates and the like, good luck with it!

[Stuart]

Thanks MC :)

I definitely know what you mean about the AMOLED screen - lovely

Good luck with your purchase - and with your coding experiments whatever language they're in!

[Stuart]

I've entered iron7 into WP7Comp - if anyone does like the app, then please help me win and fund some more development by leaving a positive comment on: http://www.wp7comp.com/iron7-ruby-scripting-on-windows-phone-7/trackback/

Also, the source for iron7 if finally available inside http://github.com/slodge/main - it's still not clear if this will be pulled across as a sample into the main IronRuby repo - depends on some dependent library licensing compatibilities

Bit of a spammy comment - so many links - sorry!

Stuart