For example, on the Demos and Sample Code page it has me install a ruby gem.
http://www.sproutcore.com/demos/
What the hell? You lost my interest at ruby and the command line.
Many people see the build tools and assume that you need to know Ruby to use SproutCore. This isn't true. SproutCore apps are written 100% in JavaScript, and Ruby just happens to be the language we used to create the tooling needed to build serious web applications.
For example, the build tools will automatically concatenate your JavaScript and CSS files, minify them, ensure that dependencies are loaded in the correct order, provide a proxy so you can work around the single-origin policy during development, generate unit tests, and much more. We think that the trade-off is worth it, especially since all Linux and Mac OS X distributions come with Ruby and RubyGems.
One of the guiding principles behind SproutCore is that it allows you to build well-architected JavaScript applications where the separation of concerns is clear. Being able to organize your JavaScript files is an important part of that. I think you'll find that when you start building web apps of any serious scale, you'll end up assembling a collection of command-line tools that do all of these things. We just put them all in one place for you.
Most need to be sold on what's possible before I can be sold on organization and architecture. If that's not your target audience then I don't think this is a big deal. But if you want to get your hard work out to the masses then show them what's possible and worry about the organization and architecture later :).
I install all my dev stuff with the command line (npm, gem, easy_python etc). What's wrong with that?
sorry, but it's been a long day and I'm sick to the back teeth of people bitching about other people's hard work because it's not exactly to their liking
Anyways, my point is just that the team ought to work on their message to potential users of their library. It's a small price to pay to reap the rewards of their hard work.
I've put up a build of our sample controls app that demonstrates the new controls:
Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/EgRNJ.png am on chrome 10, linux.
Would be really great to see some feedback from other users.
However personally I think the other stuff that is in there is pretty slick as well. The data bindings are pretty handy.
