From: Jim Cochrane <allergic-to-spam@...>
Date: 2006-12-18T03:25:16+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby IDE

On 2006-12-17, David Vallner <david@vallner.net> wrote:
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> Sam Smoot wrote:
>> There seems to be some confusion though: You don't compile Ruby. The
>> Ruby interpreter executes your source code directly. So other than
>> syntax checking, integrated help, and syntax highlighting, an IDE
>> doesn't buy you much.=20
>
> Like integrated unit test support.
> Project management.
> Debugging with source code navigation.
> Semantics-aware code templates.

Not to mention the ability to get a comprehensive view of the structure of
a system (inheritance hierarchies, client relationships, subsystems, class
interfaces [public methods and specs], etc.) as an aid in refactoring or
adding components.  It's pretty hard to do that from the command line.
(Not sure if any Ruby IDEs can currently do this, but it's so useful, I
suspect it will be available in a few years.)


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