RubyMotion Success Story: Cabify

http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/30514580062/rubymotion-success-story-cabify

by thibaut_barrere • 14 years ago

40 45 14 years ago

blog.rubymotion.com

hans_olo3• 14 years ago

Hmm, I have used Cabify and it's a horribly slow application. Now I know why.

javierhonduco3• 14 years ago

As far as I'm concerned, Rubymotion shoudn't decrease the performance of an app...

firlefans• 14 years ago

Yup Rubymotion isn't interpreted, it's compiled file by file to LLVM bytecode, this negatively effects development speed but it means it runs (roughly) as fast as pure obj-c (or so they claim on the rubymotion site). We're using it at the moment to develop an app, it's great at keeping code DRY, debuggability on device kinda sucks atm though.

thibaut_barrere2• 14 years ago

Given how RubyMotion works (not an interpreter unlike regular Ruby), if the app is slow (I didn't test!) then it's very likely not related to RubyMotion.

cicloid• 14 years ago

- "We hope to launch a new completely redesigned app in the next few weeks, as opposed to months!"

It seems the app for common users is not the RubyMotion app.

rebo• 14 years ago

They are not using Rubymotion for their customer app yet.

jcromartie• 14 years ago

No, you don't. Of all the things I have against RubyMotion, performance is not one of them.

batista4• 14 years ago

I call BS.

Your other comment in the same thread does not mention you using Cabify at all -- it's a general slant against the company for using "unproven technology".

And your account was created one hour ago, just to deliver these two negative comments here.

flatline312• 14 years ago

I, for one, am not looking forward to an influx of Rails engineers redefining the iOS development culture in their image.

The lack of respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years of platform development is staggering, but not unexpected. They're rejecting everything from Interface Builder to the standard build tools, and adopting inferior web ideas wholesale -- such as attempting to style native UI with CSS.

While it may be par for the course, I'd had hoped that our section of the engineering field would be immune to influence from the Rails community.

jballanc3• 14 years ago

I really don't understand how the world of iOS development has become one of the most cloistered developer communities in recent memory. Is it the gold rush mentality, maybe?

Seriously, some of the outright hostility I've seen in the iOS development community is breathtaking. Yes, there is a lot of money to be made in iOS development so, no, you probably don't need to practice community building in order to be successful...today.

Regardless, your snide comment about "Rails engineers" reveals your own ignorance on the subject. There are plenty of software engineers that use Ruby but not Rails, and any developer who cannot use Ruby without Rails is unlikely to be of any threat to "redefine iOS development culture", since RubyMotion is not Rails.

Edit: Also...since when have "hacker" and "respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years" ever had anything to do with each other? Take the "knowledge gained", evaluate it on its merits, and if you find it lacking, who cares over how many years it was gained?!? If you think you can do better, do so.

flatline312• 14 years ago

> I really don't understand how the world of iOS development has become one of the most cloistered developer communities in recent memory. Is it the gold rush mentality, maybe?

You must understand that the iOS development community has its roots in decades of engineering community, coming from NeXT, Mac OS and UNIX traditions.

We're simply not interested in the subpar engineering that comes from the inexperienced web developers joining the gold rush.

> Edit: Also...since when have "hacker" and "respect for knowledge gained over 20+ years" ever had anything to do with each other? Take the "knowledge gained", evaluate it on its merits, and if you find it lacking, who cares over how many years it was gained?!? If you think you can do better, do so.

Which is why we've watched the Rails community re-invent the wheel repeatedly over the past 6 years, consistently rediscovering abandoned methodologies, and then rediscovering why those methodologies were abandoned.

One of my favorite examples was the the breathless enthusiasm at the rediscovery of the (inefficient, abandoned) pure pre-fork model: http://tomayko.com/writings/unicorn-is-unix

Or, watching the extremely poor architecture of Rails waste vast troves of server CPU and RAM.

Or any other of the hundreds (thousands?) examples of junior engineers ignoring history and re-inventing failed architectures that would not have been so broken if they looked at what came before with anything other than disdain.

hans_olo3• 14 years ago

Heh, yeah. Look at that company. A 20 years old dude comes with some hipster unproven technology and the boss jumps at it.

They are doomed to fail.

javierhonduco3• 14 years ago

Every technology gets proven with its use, investing time, great loads of effort, sometimes money, and courage. Last one it's the most important for me :) Btw, did you know any technology that was already proven when it wasn't known? IMHO that's a part of the mainstreaming process, and almost everything we have today has past through it.

batista4• 14 years ago

Unproven in what sense? This is not some novel academic concept. It's a Ruby port on the Obj-C runtime. If it builds and runs the app, there is absolutely nothing to be proven.

Also, "a 20 years old dude comes with some hipster unproven technology"? Isn't this how Apple for one was founded? Not to mention Yahoo, Google and Facebook...

cnp5• 14 years ago

RubyMotion changed the way our entire agency operates: we haven't outsourced a single app in months. It's been the best thing to happen to us, hands down.

thibaut_barrere2• 14 years ago

Bypassing visual builders in favor of code is not a new idea!

It happened as well with .Net and VisualStudio; I used to be a heavy WinForm developer (including visual tools). At some point being able to do everything programmatically proved to be really interesting in my use cases (and on other people projects, too).

Not everyone is going to adopt CSS and Pixate, and people are using RubyMotion without Pixate, too.

As for the Rails community, pure iOS people are also interested in RubyMotion (based on my exchanges with developers, that is).

In the end, there is no such thing as lack of respect or bad influence. New tools get created, people pick what works for them. People using Rails used other platforms before and will use other platforms later.

I'll end with an advice to (new?) programmers: don't let fear (of being replaced) choose your skills and tools for you.

flatline312• 14 years ago

> I'll end with an advice to (new?) programmers: don't let fear (of being replaced) choose your skills and tools for you.

I'm more concerned about propagation of bad ideas. The current job market and VC climate has given extremely junior engineers a voice grossly disproportionate to their skill, wisdom, or experience.

In a more healthy job market, those engineers would be hired into junior positions apprenticed to senior engineers. In the current job market, inexperienced engineers are given carte blanche, and this shifts the industry. Not all shifts are a net positive.

It was with great dismay that I observed the rise of the Rails community, and I find it exceedingly disturbing to see their anti-intellectual, anti-experience, anti-computer-science approaches extending outside their initial realm of influence.

batista4• 14 years ago

What exactly have you done in iOS programming to feel so entitled? Seriously, it must be awesome, give us a link maybe?

That said, they may lack respect for "knowledge gained over 20+ years of platform development", but you also lack knowledge of the "worse is better" reality and the underlying Unix/Lisp history behind it.

flatline312• 14 years ago

> What exactly have you done in iOS programming to feel so entitled?

One of the top-grossing apps with ~$60M/year in revenue. Considerable open-source libraries. A huge number of applications are running my code, even if you discount the code I have in the OS.

> That said, they may lack respect for "knowledge gained over 20+ years of platform development", but you also lack knowledge of the "worse is better" reality and the underlying Unix/Lisp history behind it.

"Worse is better" doesn't really mean anything. Most of the usage is predicated on false dichotomies and gross over-simplifications, usually revolving around the notion that the opposite of "worse" is nothing at all.

Moreover, if any languages/platforms were a poster-boy for the "worse is better" mantra, it would be Apple's platforms. ObjC is high-functioning dinosaur.

jballanc3• 14 years ago

Congrats to Mark on his success! For those who haven't had a chance to follow along, Mark has been a constant presence in the community and I'm glad to see his drive and willingness to take the initiative has paid off. His story is also a perfect example of why it is so important to get out, give talks, and participate in your local development communities, even if "local" doesn't overlap with "Silicon Valley" or "NYC".

javierhonduco3• 14 years ago

That's a very good point to focus on. Thank you! ;)

MarkVillacampa• 14 years ago

Thank you Joshua! :)

mmahemoff• 14 years ago

Just curious - are developers putting themselves at risk by revealing they're using RubyMotion? ie risk of being penalised in app store or possibly even banned if Apple's policy swung back to how it used to be.

I assume there's no way to tell an app is RubyMotion by inspecting the UI, though maybe it's possible to tell from the binary?

jballanc3• 14 years ago

You would have to be rather talented and put in a non-trivial amount of effort to tell a RubyMotion app from any other iOS app. A while back there was a conversation in IRC where one person was trying to do just that and kept coming up short...

Edit: Also, "how it used to be" was a stupid, knee-jerk reaction to Adobe and caused significant consternation even within Apple (disclaimer: I was working at Apple at the time). Furthermore, considering that the single most recognizable "App Store" brand utilizes a non-trivial amount of Lua, there is essentially zero risk that things will go back to "how it used to be".

ylem• 14 years ago

How does cabify differ from uber? I haven't used either...

macuenca• 14 years ago

I haven't used Über, but the idea is exactly the same and the apps are very much alike. I live in Madrid, which is one of the cities where Cabify operates. I've used their service a couple of times and I can only recommend it. Looks like a good place to work and Mark Villa Camp, the guy mentioned in the article is a well known name in the Spanish tech scene.

Is Cabify a copycat? Whatever, is a well executed idea and I wish they succeed.

RubyMotion Success Story: Cabify

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