From its introduction in May 2012, RubyMotion has seemed like a dream come true. Finally, Rubyists can build real, native iPhone and iPad apps from the comfort of their favorite editor, without the pain and hassle of using (or even learning) the Objective-C language or Apple’s Xcode IDE. But there’s a lot that’s valuable, even delightful, about Objective-C and Xcode, and experienced Cocoa developers have expressed doubts about whether it’s a good idea not to use Apple’s official tools. What are we leaving behind when we use RubyMotion instead of Objective-C to write apps? Are the tradeoffs worth it? In this talk we’ll cover: - What exactly is the relationship between RubyMotion and Objective-C? Why is it okay to use RubyMotion but less okay to use other kinds of third party frameworks? - How modern Objective-C, with its clean literal syntax and automatic memory management, stacks up against Ruby’s even cleaner, more dynamic code - How Xcode, Apple’s powerful, purpose-built IDE, stacks up against Rake and a text editor in terms of power, simplicity, and (most of all) productivity - Finally, the big question: which language should new Cocoa developers use to write their first apps?