Lori M Olson 
FITS — Featured in the School 🎓
Speaking of which … do you reach out and help people when they post about a problem, or ask a question? Years ago, after I left TeamB, I found I actually had to scale back because it was chewing up all my spare time. However, setting that aside for a moment, I can safely say helping other people can be an excellent learning experience. Try it out!
I would also like to talk about something quite a bit more serious. The WNDX School — specifically the RubyMotion and DragonRuby parts — and the DragonRuby Dispatch have not been paying their way for some time. 💸 Furthermore, I am no longer in a position to keep pouring my own money into it as a ‘passion project’ simply because I love it. Which I do.
So, something has to change. I’m currently reviewing all options, including corporate sponsorship, a subscription model or a tip jar, as well as moving to different and less expensive service platforms.
But there are some things you can do right now if you really want to help: if you enjoy and value the DragonRuby Dispatch, please hit reply and let us know that it’s worth all that work! You can also share the DragonRuby Dispatch with others who might be able to lend a hand in maintaining DRD as a viable and valuable asset to the RubyMotion community — before it’s too late.
TALK — Talk of the Tech 🗣️
Sometimes it’s the little things which can trip you up. For instance, a recent returnee to the RubyMotion fold spotted the seemingly nasty “operation not permitted” error in the touch command motion doctor suggests. Turns out there is a very simple fix as discussed recently on the Dragon Riders Slack.
Meanwhile over on the more game-oriented DRGTK Discord, there was this pretty little demo with which we kinda fell in love 😍 what with it being Valentine’s and all. But it’s not just beauty, there are also brains behind it as well as the follow up discussion about positioning and camera proves.
GAME — All Things Gaming 🕹️
With respect to Mungler’s post ⬅️ that all sounds great but here’s a wild idea: how about you just start.
What we’re tripping over is your statement “need to learn game programming first”. In the immortal words of a good friend of ours: “define learn”. Trick is, you really can’t. You just have to throw caution to the wind and write that first line of code. You’ll quickly figure out what you don’t know and you will take a break to learn that particular thing. You’ll carry on and then — you guessed it — you’ll trip over something else and have to head back to class. You’ll do that over and over and over again ‘til you’re finished. It’s really pretty simple, actually.
However, take consolation in the fact that not one thing you learned on the bumpy journey will be over and above the absolute minimum you needed to know to complete your project.
JITL. Rhymes with Skittle. 🍬
TWIL — This Week [We] Learned 🤓
We’ve all endured the misery of losing track of the exact location of a project root folder only to have to resort to endless retyping of cd .. ‘til we finally got to it again. That is if we didn’t overshoot and wind up complete lost in the nether regions of the filesystem. However, as we say quite often …
Never fear!
There’s a clever solution from Brian Hogan just over there ↗️ check it out. Also, there is his rather excellent newsletter which you should also check out and to which you should really consider subscribing.
SPOT — Spotlight On 🔦
We’re finding the social platforms vying to grab Shwitter’s market share are heating up a little. It’s about time because, frankly, we’re not sure why anybody would still be on that burning toxic waste dumpster of a service at this point.
Of course, the most common thing we hear is “yeah I’d switch but, y’see, I have all these followers”. Seriously, you think so? On your most recents posts, how many likes or reposts are you getting as a percentage of total followers? Also, have you checked your new followers? You might be just a tad disappointed that they’re not the upstanding citizens you assumed they were. Or even — y’know — human.
Anywho … we digress. But we did recently spot this fascinating little thread on Threads — the leading contendor in the replacement race, perhaps? — which is about just getting your silly little app out there for heaven’s sake.
HAHA — And They All Laughed (or Cried) 🎭
Despite the typo — we’re asssuming “car” should be “cat” — this is hilarious and a good example of why low res design is so hard.
Now, wasn’t all of that great information and entertainment worth a buck or two? After all, DRD really is the World’s Best DragonRuby Newsletter and it can be delivered to you—at least it will be if you subscribe! Follow the WNDX School on Facebook, and don’t forget to follow WNDXLori on Twitter and Instagram.
Finally, if you enjoyed this issue of the DragonRuby Dispatch, please forward to a friend and ask them to subscribe, too … that is, while they still can.
“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” — Marilyn Monroe
