From: Jonathan Allen Date: 2007-01-21T14:10:58+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby text editor for beginner Giles Bowkett wrote: > I have a theory about this. > > My theory is that newbies ask for an IDE because they don't understand > irb. > I'm willing to bet that most of them don't understand how to effectively use a REPL loop, and that's fine if you look at it from their perspective. Some people really, really don't like the idea of coding interactively. They want to see their whole program as a file. This gives them the assurance that what is before them is exactly what will be in memory, with no lingering garbage from previously executed commands. There is also the familiarity aspects. People coming from a non-REPL background often look at it and ask, "Ok, now how do I save my program?" or "Do I really have to retype my last 30 lines to fix that little bug in method foo?". Having cut my teeth on GW-BASIC, I personally see it as a step backwards. Why? Because with BASIC I could at least decide if the statements I entered would be run immediately or saved for latter. This was done by optionally prefixing them with line numbers. With line numbers, I can easily list everything I have already entered and go back and edit lines. I can even write the beginning and end of a block before I filled in the details. For many people, there is no way to convince them that REPL systems like irb is anything more than a toy. You make think its great, but these people are not going to listen to you. If you try to force them, then they will just assume Ruby is a toy as well. They will think, "Ruby must be a toy, is doesn't even have a decent IDE." So let them have their IDE. Once they have time to play with the language, the ones who want to learn REPL will pick irb. And the ones that are unwilling to learn it will be perfectly happy using Ruby without it. Jonathan -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.