From: Eric Armstrong Date: 2006-04-17T11:10:50+09:00 Subject: Re: Newbie's Ruby IDE Editor Roundup, April 2006 Whups. Typo: s/b ArchnoRuby http://www.ruby-ide.com/ruby/ruby_ide_and_ruby_editor.php Javaman49 wrote: > By a Newbie, for Newbies. > > I'm trying to get started with Ruby development, and have just spent a > couple of days looking for an IDE. In my googling, I came across this > forum several times, so it seems to be a good for posting my > experiences. I apologise for the long post, but it does seem to be > relevant. > > My background - 20 years experience, with a mix of Linux and Windows. > I'm Currently profficient with Visual Studio, and was once profficient > with emacs. I can do simple tasks with vi. I have also used several > IDE's in addition to Visual Studio - such as Oracle JDeveloper and > Delphi. > > My favourite IDE to date - Visual Studio 2003/5, for it's good looks, > lightning response, intellisense, code completion, integration of > different languages, code navigation, good window organisation, ... in > short, because it offers a huge range of features within a well > structured and light feeling UI. > > If there were a Ruby plugin for Visual Studio, I would have gone > straight to that, and been willing to pay, say, $200 for it, but there > isn't, so I went on a great Ruby editor hunt. > > The hunt > > After several days of massive googling, downloading, and configuring, I > discovered that there is no product which comes close to being a "Ruby > for Visual Studio", but the best overall, and quite usable, was > Arachnoruby. At $29, for the non-commercial version, it's not free, but > is cheap. > > I will give a run-down of all the editors and IDE's I tried. Most of > these I would have found to be an acceptable Ruby editor, however there > was always something which made Arachnoruby preferable, and worth paying > $29 for. Obviously, I may have done an injustice to any of these, and > missed an important quality. In that case, I apologise and am happy to > be corrected. Nevertheless, in my 2 days of looking for a Ruby editor, I > had to go on first impressions, and Arachnoruby the one I kept coming > back to. > > I am running an AMD 2800, with 750 MB of RAM. I dual boot Windows XP, > and Xandros Linux. > > 1. Free general editors, plugins needed... > > eclipse - The only one of the "free, plus plugin" tools where the plugin > could be located and installed with a wizard. It did take me some failed > attempts to achieve this, but I put that down to my unfamiliarity with > eclipse. RoR support is in development, which is a big plus. The Ruby > plugin seemed to work nicely, but didn't do "as you type" indentation. > It does provide "formatting", on a keystroke, but "as you type" > indentation is worth a lot to me. The other Ruby features were nice, but > not as important to me as the indentation. > > jedit - couldn't get it running in Xandros. I have used it in the past > in Windows. > > My overall impression of Java based editors (eclipse, jedit) is that the > "look" is good, and sometimes "great", but the "feel" is sluggish. They > would have to have very strong Ruby support to make me prefer them to a > "lighter" editor. > > emacs - an old favourite of mine, but I've used fully graphical IDE's > for too long to want to go back to it's keystroke based command set. To > me, it is easier to think about a program when you are not thinking > about how to navigate the editor. The plugin seemed to work quite nicely > for indentation, but I didn't get syntax highlight working. I assume > that the auto-complete function is just the old emacs one of looking for > words in the current file. I believe that emacs is (or was) the > preferred editor of the the Ruby "owners", so it must offer a lot to > those willing to invest the time. > > Vim -From the net buzz Ruby support seems to be mature, and while I > enjoy vim for small tasks, I've never used it for serious programming. A > quick look at the instructions for installing Ruby support (only for the > dedicated) was enough to make me move on to more promising (for me) > products. > > gedit - Slow, in Xandros. Perhaps this is because it is a Gnome app > running on a KDE desktop. The Ruby plugin mentioned on the net didn't > seem to have enough to recommend it to make it worthwhile trying. > > cream - Some Ruby support "out of the box". It provided nice syntax > highlight, and an "auto-indent" option (but this didn't work for me). It > is nice and light, being vim based, and is switchable between GUI and > raw VIM mode. It seemed worth more investigating. > > 2. A cross platform, pure Ruby editor > > FreeRIDE - Overall, very good, and promises more. Automatic indentation > is adequate, but not complete. The integration of interpreter, debugger > and Ruby manuals is there, but not as well organised (to my eye), as in > Arachnoruby. Recommended. > > SciITE - A nice place to start. It is light and clean, and does syntax > highlighting and basic indentation (as per FreeRIDE) but just doesn't do > very much as a Ruby editor. > > 3. KDE based > > I love the look and feel of KDE applications, so I would have been keen > to get Ruby working in one of these... > > kate - A very nice programmers editor. It was difficult to locate and > install the Ruby plugins, and when I did they were adequate, but seemed > to only provide syntax highlighting. No auto-indent, or other strong > Ruby support. > > kdevelop - couldn't install it on Xandros > > Quanta - It installed first time with an "apt-get" in Xandros. A truely > beautiful editor! I couldn't get any Ruby support running though. > However, I might be using it for HTML in the future, and if it gets good > Ruby support, then I'll be having another look. > > 4. Did not try - > > slickedit > komodo > > Both of these are mature, cross language, cross platform editors, with > "add-ons" for Ruby. Both are expensive, and after looking at the feature > sets, and reviews, I couldn't see any reason to try them when > Arachnoruby seemed to match them (for Ruby development) at $29. > > 5. My winner, Arachnoby > > Works out of the box! It has Ruby syntax highlighting, very nice "as you > type" indentation, debugger, live syntax checking. The default colour > scheme is garish, but an alternative scheme can be selected. The > auto-complete function is basic - it just looks for identifiers within > the current file. This, however, is as good as any I found during my > investigation. It's still in beta - version 0.6.5, so some of the > features are only stubs, but the stubs seem to be in the right place, > and look promising for a great Ruby IDE. Arachno uses a cross platform > widget set, which has some drawbacks. The "look" is reasonably modern > and graphical, but not as sharp as it could be - KDE and Windows both > look better. The "feel" is as responsive as a native application. > > So, I can only go on first impressions, but the first impression of > Arachnoruby was the best of all. In addition, longtime users on the net > praise it. > > So, my recommendations... > > 1. If you are a heavy user of emacs, jedit, vim, kate, kdevelop > etc..then find the Ruby plugin for you. However, you probably wouldn't > be looking here anyway. > > 2. FeeRIDE is a good place to start for anyone else. > > 2. Arachnoruby is, in my humble, and not very well informed opinion, the > best of them all for someone looking for a new IDE, and well worth $29 > > A final note: I was looking for a Linux editor, in Xandros, which is > Debian based. Arachnoruby is cross platform, but the Windows version is > ahead of the others. I decided to continue with version 0.5.6 in Linux, > rather than version 6.5 in windows. My first attempt at running 6.5 with > Cross-Over office didn't succeed. I'll try again later, but for the > moment I've had enough of installing and configuring, and want to get on > with Ruby coding! > > >