I am reading a little bit on Objective-C, and since it comes from Smalltalk, like Ruby does, so I wonder, is it true that if using Ruby, (if Apple change XCode to support it), to develop iPhone or Mac app, it is not suitable really because of the speed? For example, Angry Birds probably isn’t as smooth as it is now if using Ruby, vs if Objective-C, it is compiled and running as machine code.
But currently, is there any way of compiling Ruby or Python code into machine code so that it is running in the similar speed zone as Objective-C programs can?
On desktop those are fine languages to use, and for Python you could use py2app to deploy your app. You wouldn’t want to write low-level graphics routines in an interpreted language, but that’s what libraries like PyGame are for.
(Not that this is a particular advantage, but note that one of the most popular 2D game frameworks on iOS is a port of a 2D game framework for Python: http://cocos2d.org/ )
Until recently the iOS developer terms specifically disallowed running an interpreter, so nobody used Ruby or Python on iPhone. Apps programmed in those languages will probably start showing up, but you won’t find much about that just yet.