From: Neil Hodgson <nhodgson@...>
Date: 2001-10-27T13:14:51+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:23592] Re: komodo (was: Ruby and Python: a fuzzy question)

Rich Kilmer:
> Well...ActiveState has an interest in Ruby, but no exact
> timeframe yet.  As for other things, on Win32 I've gone
> to using ScTE (www.scintilla.org).  Its a great editing
> component for for lots of languages including Ruby.  It
> also runs on Linux. Its not really an IDE (no project mgt,
> debugging, etc) but its a great editor.

   On Windows, there is an SciTE companion program called Filerx that adds
project capabilities and macro programming.
http://perso.libertysurf.fr/llt/
   SciTE has two levels of customisation interface, one in-process
(extension) and an external one (director) that is based on the extension
interface. The extension interface was used to develop a version of SciTE
that used Lua as an internal macro language but this was abandoned due to
lack of interest.

   As I want SciTE to stay generic, I won't be adding debugging capability
unless someone comes up with a generic cross-process debugging interface
that can be used with different languages. You need a cross-process
debugging capability both to start with a completely pristine environment
for each debug run and because you often need to debug scripts within
another process like a web server. If the producers of IDE's for open-source
languages (notably ActiveState, theKompany, Archaeopteryx, and PythonWare)
were to get together, possibly also with the various language communities,
and define an open standard debugging interface between the debugger and the
'probe code' that is inserted into the debuggee then language communities
would be able to create probes for their languages and thus be able to debug
with environments that follow the standard.

   Currently, it looks to me like the IDE vendors see debugging as one of
their core differentiators but I see the M*N matrix of environments versus
languages as a great way to waste effort. By reusing Scintilla in most of
these environments (PythonWare uses Tk instead) the effort to support Ruby
is reduced while still allowing product differentiation with additional
features. The same can be true with a debugging interface that standardises
basic functionality and allows products to improve on this both through
building on the core interface and through extending the interface.

Mark Hahn:
# If komodo is open-source (it is, right?) then we should
# be able to see exactly where Ruby stands, or is there
# secret work going on with Komodo?

   Paul Prescod can give you the official line but, as I understand it,
Komodo is not open-source. (I'm not an officer of or a spokesman for
ActiveState although I have worked for them in the past)

   Neil