From: Curt Hibbs <curt@...>
Date: 2003-08-15T22:58:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby & Windows-world; IDEs

Brian McCallister wrote:
>
> > Hi Armin.
> >
> > As a Java programmer and something of a Ruby Nuby, there are two
> > things I want from an editor/IDE. The first is a quick
> > test-code-refactor cycle, and the second is any sort of support for
> > being a lazy programmer :)
> >
>
> As a Java during the day, Ruby at night, programmer... IDEA and Eclipse
> basically make Java development and turnaround at least as quick as
> most scripting languages. The test-code-fix-refactor cycle gets very
> tight. Toss in wonderfully powerful refactoring tools and you have a
> killer environment. I have seen an afternoon with either of them
> convert hard core emacs and vi users on multiple occasions.

The goal of the FreeRIDE project is to bring this compatibility to Ruby.
Since its written in Ruby we get to use our own product during development.

I (and everyone else) wishes that we were farther along in FreeRIDE's
development. But like all open source projects, FreeRIDE depends on its
volunteer developers and whatever time they have available. (If you want to
help out, let us know... hint, hint...).

Anyway, FreeRIDE does have a source explorer that lets you navigate your
code by module/class/method. The debugger works on Linux, and we need to
revisit the debugger on Windows. One of our main developers (Rich Kilmer) is
a Mac user and has FreeRIDE running on the OS X (I don't know if he has the
debugger running on OS X).

> All of that said, Ruby has ruined me for Java. I almost posted to a
> Jakarta list earlier this week saying the whole project should be moved
> to Ruby as it would alleviate a lot of technical issues. Go figure.
> IDEA for Ruby... mmmm.

This is what happened to me a couple years ago. I had just discovered
IntelliJ IDEA and was feeling like I could *finally* be productive in Java,
then two months later I found Ruby! On the FreeRIDE project we have often
used IDEA as model for what we want in FreeRIDE.

Curt