Introduction to Ruby and Python Programming Topics for OS X

Ruby and Python are two popular scripting languages that, with OS X version 10.5, are becoming even more significant alternatives for software development on OS X, especially with additional support for bridges between the scripting languages and Cocoa and Open Scripting Architecture (OSA),

This collection of articles describes the Ruby and Python resources of OS X, and shows how to use some of those programming resources. This document is intended for Python and Ruby developers who are new to OS X as well as for experienced Cocoa and Carbon developers who are relatively new to the scripting languages.

Organization of This Document

These programming topics consist of the following articles:

• “Ruby and Python on OS X” gives an overview of the Ruby and Python resources on OS X, including the Cocoa and OSA bridges, and provides links to websites related to these scripting languages.

• “Building a RubyCocoa Application: A Tutorial” steps you through the creation of a simple RubyCocoa application.

• “Using Scripting Bridge in PyObjC and RubyCocoa Code” describes how to incorporate Scripting Bridge in your code to communicate with and control OSA-compliant applications.

• “Generating Framework Metadata” explains what framework metadata is and how to create these XML files used by the scripting bridges.