From: Curt Hibbs <curt@...>
Date: 2002-12-03T04:05:13+09:00
Subject: Re: FreeRIDE Status

Rich Kilmer wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Shannon Fang [mailto:xrfang@hotmail.com]
> > Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 11:52 AM
> > To: ruby-talk ML
> > Subject: Re: FreeRIDE Status
> >
> >
> > Hi Curt,
> >
> > I am interested if FreeRIDE will integrate "Form Design", to
> > make it a
> > full-blown IDE? Or only source-level debuging is planed? What
> > can I expect
> > to see in FreeRIDE, which might be better than RDE?
> >
> > Thanks a lot.
> > Shannon
> >
>
> FreeRIDE is plugin based, so something like form design will be
> integrated as a plugin to the IDE.  Right now we are getting basic
> functionality completed.  We are planning a powerful project manager as
> well (with jabber integration :-).  As for major differences from
> RDE...not much in the initial alpha/beta...but that will change quickly.
> Most importantly, FreeRIDE is written in Ruby so its extensible in
> Ruby...RDE is not.

I just wanted to expand on what Rich said a little bit.

Our vision for the FreeRIDE project is grand... *very grand*! Achieving that
vision will be incremental over time. Exactly how much time really depends
on how much other Ruby developers are interested, willing, and able to help
out.

We have quite a few Ruby developers who have signed up (see
http://www.rubyide.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DeveloperList), but over the past
year there has not been very much that most of them could do. We have
concentrated on implemented a basic set of IDE functions on top of an
extremely solid and flexible plugin architecture.

The goal was to enable (or better yet, to *inspire*) other Ruby developers
to create additional plugins to extend the core functionality of FreeRIDE.
And because FreeRIDE is written in 100% Ruby, you don't have to leave your
favorite language to do this.

How fast we achieve our vision (and your vision, if you choose to
participate), and how far we take it depends entirely on the level of
interest and participation by the Ruby community. And not just in writing
plugins, either. There will always be a need for better documentation,
testing, localization for other languages, etc. So, don't think that you
have to write FreeRIDE plugins in order to help out.

For example, we plan to originate all of our documentation from the FreeRIDE
wiki. So if you find and error, an area that is unclear, or you want to
write a how-to, its very easy to just go to our wiki (www.rubyide.org) and
make the changes -- anyone can do that because we do not have any
restrictions on access, and even this level of participation would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks again to everyone for being patient!

Curt