Lori M Olson 
OPED — Lori’s Unvarnished Opinion
This week we are going to talk about tools. And not about the fancy tools, the IDE’s and so forth. We’re gonna talk about the command line.
As developers the closer we are to the metal the more information we have. And as we get away from the command line we lose some information. You should have a good grasp of your command line and command shell.
As RubyMotion and DragonRuby developers we should know how to do everything we need to do at the command line. We should know the Ruby tools like IRB and rake. The RubyMotion tools like the motion command, and the REPL. The DragonRuby commands to run and publish your games.
And we need to know how to use git command line as well. Sometimes, you can get tangled up in a complicated merge conflict, and the only way to recover without losing all your changes is to use the command line.
Embrace the command line. Learn all its tricks. Add more tools. You’ll find a new one I just encountered in our TWIL section. At the end of the day, you’ll be a better developer with a toolset that’s been around for longer than a lot of you have been alive. The command line will still be around in 10 years. Can you say the same about the other tools you are using today?
APP — All Things App
We’ve all done it at one time or another: created a screenshot from our mobile device, then tediously tracked down an image of the device and then finally overlayed the two to make it look like the device is actually displaying the screenshot. You’ve done that right? We certainly have. Well, it turns out that all can be done in one fell swoop with Federico Viticci’s Apple Frames. Now with support for iPhone 12
SPOT — Spotlight On…
Need a little help translating Objective-C blocks into Ruby blocks? This short, focused gist from Mateus provides all the details you need along with some illustrative examples.
TALK — Talk of the Tech
As usual, we have an item from each of the DragonRuby/Rubymotion chat groups. From the Discord, we learned the oft-cussed DragonRuby deficiency of lack of multi-line textboxes has finally been addressed with DragonRuby-Textboxes. Check out the related discussion.
From the Dragon Riders Slack, we’re reaching back a bit for a discussion about Amir’s Layout Theory. But this is relevant—you’ll see.
GAME — All Things Gaming
We’re always intrigued to see a new DragonRuby game appear on the scene, as was the case recently with the cleverly-named Hexagone. While the instructions are a little terse, that makes figuring the basic aspects of the game challenging and it’s satisfying when you finally figure them out. It’s just an 0.1 release, so we look forward to keeping track of this as it undoubtedly evolves over time.
TWIL — This Week I Learned…
In the category of the “didn’t think there was anything new to invent”, Dan Davison has come up with a better viewer for git and diff output: Delta. If you need any convincing, Dan provides some side-by-side comparisons of Delta versus other tools you may have used in the past.
HAHA — And They All Laughed
Having put together our brand new Amelia Earhart Tribute set recently we can relate to this. Lego really does set the gold standard in terms of easy-to-follow documentation—and does it using virtualy zero words. From @chuckchucknock on Twitter:
That’s a Wrap!
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“Let nature take its course and your tools will strike at the right moment.” — Bruce Lee