Re: Objective-C 2.0 and other new features in Leopard

[Helge Hess]

On 10.11.2007, at 20:11, Jesse Ross wrote:
> > To pickup the Ruby example, I'm not aware of any "killer app" Ruby  
> > or Rails provides.
> Just to clarify, Rails _is_ Ruby's killer app. Rails is what  
> propelled Ruby onto the shelves of every bookstore I can think of;  
> it's what made people take a closer look at Ruby.

I strongly disagree. Rails itself became interesting to users due to  
the "web 2.0" applications which got built on top of it, eg Basecamp,  
not by itself. Only _then_ people started to look what those apps got  
built with and started to do own ones. Well and simple apps are  
simple to do, simple to deploy on the internet and show everyone, and  
two weeks later you have da hype just because of a:hover ;-)

Interestingly those "killerapps" were not even killerapps due to RoR  
(after all the source of those apps isn't even available!) but much  
more because of Prototype/Scriptaculous and good web-/appdesign (the  
latter btw also worked well for Plone).
("RoR is that web framework which allows me to do yellow fades and  
drag'n'drop" is the common theme and obvious nonsense ;-)

To get back to the point, I also think that a few really good end  
user applications could make a difference. They are required to prove  
that GNUstep works. Like Evolution on Gnome or Kontact on KDE. Both  
not the greatest stuff on earth, but reasonably complex and somewhat  
usable enduser apps which prove that the stuff works.

Of course the RoR developers were also *brilliant* when inventing the  
story that they want to keep things "simple" and "opinionated" :-)  
The perfect excuse for any lacking feature or argument ;-)

Greets,
  Helge
--
Helge Hess
http://www.helgehess.eu/