I may have missed something but API calls looks like a regular Ruby call with a hash and since all [] are dropped it's systematically shorter (not even counting the fact that you don't have .h/.m, declaration/implementation, it's not just a matter of API calls).

i.e. [obj method: param second: param2]; vs obj.method(param, second: param2) which is exactly two characters shorter in ruby.

And what would be the point of having something that looks like Objective-C?

I was looking at the example and their are a fair number of commas. If you pass 3 selectors it is longer.

  UIColor.colorWithRed(red/100.0, green:green/100.0, blue:blue/100.0, alpha:1.0)

vs

  [UIColor colorWithRed:red/100.0 green:green/100.0 blue:blue/100.0 alpha:1.0];

>And what would be the point of having something that looks like Objective-C?

Because the name of the function is not colorWithRed(), it is colorWithRed:blue:green:alpha:.

Seeing as we're splitting hairs... :)

In the Ruby version I wouldn't use that selector with any parens. The resulting line would be one character longer than the ObjC version but use the Shift key one less time and would avoid two pinky trips out to the square brackets. (unless I am miscounting)

All other things being equal between the two options, and of course they aren't but let's just keep splitting hairs for a moment, it sounds like a typing win for the Ruby option. Readability is of course in the eye of the beholder.

If you want objective c syntax and behaviour surely you'd just use objective c?

Ruby is really nice for everything else, but the call syntax over to Objective-C is not quite good.