From: Wayne Vucenic <nightphotos@...>
Date: 2004-11-12T03:14:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Arachno users?

I've been programming in Ruby for 3 years, and using ArachnoRuby for
about 6 months.  I do contract programming, mostly in C++, but of
course I use Ruby as much as I can.  Before ArachnoRuby, I was
severely limited in how much I could use Ruby professionally.  I was
trying to use Ruby scripts to make changes to a code base of 5,000,000
(I'm quite serious!) lines of C++ code.  At times the scripts would
run for about 30 minutes and then crash.  If I was running outside the
debugger, I'd just get a stack trace and find myself back at the
command prompt.  I tried running the script in the Ruby debugger, but
that slowed the script down too much.  (I didn't benchmark it, but it
_felt_ like a factor of 10 slowdown.)  I couldn't wait 5 hours to get
back to the point of failure.

I tried tracking down the problem outside the debugger:  putting in
lots of print statements, etc.  At times I'd spend literally an hour
or two tracking down the problem this way.  Invariably, it would only
take a minute to fix the problem once I'd determined what the problem
was.  Since I get paid by the hour, I simply couldn't justify billing
my client for spending a few hours tracking down a problem which would
have only taken a few minutes to fix if I'd had a better development
environment.

So, very reluctantly, I severely cut back on using Ruby for paid work.
 I limited myself to small scripts that I knew I could easily debug if
necessary.

Then I discovered ArachnoRuby.  It uses a different approach to
debugging Ruby, which is much faster than the usual way.  This meant I
could once again write any Ruby script I wanted, and be confident of
being able to debug it.

For me, using ArachnoRuby has literally meant money in the bank.  I
have been able to do paid work with ArachnoRuby which I would not have
been able to do without it.

I like a lot of things about ArachnoRuby besides the debugger.  But
this post is already getting long, so let me just mention one more:

I've just started doing Web development with Ruby.  ArachnoRuby
installs its own private copy of Apache, which it automatically starts
and stops when running a Ruby script.  While running Apache you can
easily debug Ruby code: set breakpoints, single step, etc.  It may be
possible to set something like this up without using ArachnoRuby, but
ArachnoRuby provides it with no additional setup.

(Of course, I have no financial or other relationship with
Scriptolutions (the company that makes ArachnoRuby) other than being a
_very_ happy user/beta tester.)

Wayne Vucenic
No Bugs Software
"Ruby and C++ Contract Programming in Silicon Valley"


On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:58:29 +0900, itsme213 <itsme213@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Any Arachno IDE users out there? Do you mind sharing your opinion of the
> product and how much you have used it? Private email is fine too.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
>