Good editor for Windows Ruby

[Peter Bailey]

Hello,
I've been using ArachnoRuby for years and it's served me well as an
editor, but, now it's showing problems. It doesn't work with Ruby 1.9.
And, it doesn't work with the latest httpclient gem. I use that gem all
the time now. So, can anyone suggest a good Windows editor for Ruby? I
really like to use my editor for troubleshooting, so, of course, it
needs to have full debugging facilities.

SciTe doesn't seem to do the trick for me.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Mohit Sindhwani]

Hello,
I've been using ArachnoRuby for years and it's served me well as an
editor, but, now it's showing problems. It doesn't work with Ruby 1.9.
And, it doesn't work with the latest httpclient gem. I use that gem all
the time now. So, can anyone suggest a good Windows editor for Ruby? I
really like to use my editor for troubleshooting, so, of course, it
needs to have full debugging facilities.

SciTe doesn't seem to do the trick for me.

Thanks,
Peter

NetBeans?

Cheers,
Mohit.
2009/08/11 | 22:05.

 

[Peter Bailey]

NetBeans?

Cheers,
Mohit.
2009/08/11 | 22:05.

Thanks, Mohit. I'll look it up. I think I've heard of it.
Cheers.

 

[Peter Bailey]

Thanks, Mohit. I'll look it up. I think I've heard of it.
Cheers.

Uh, I downloaded and installed NetBeans. Quite painful, actually. I've
never had luck with Java apps. They're so incredibly complicated. Anyway
I'm trying to play with some of my scripts with it. It's not as easy as
it should be, but I'll keep trying.

 

[Mohit Sindhwani]

Uh, I downloaded and installed NetBeans. Quite painful, actually. I've
never had luck with Java apps. They're so incredibly complicated. Anyway
I'm trying to play with some of my scripts with it. It's not as easy as
it should be, but I'll keep trying.

In the free world, I believe it is one of the best - on the other hand,
being Java, it is a bit slow - which makes it a real pain to use if you
plan to use it to hammer out a script that takes only a few minutes to
jot down.. or modify. That said, it offers debug support, easy
switching between JRuby and MRI and so on. If I'm doing anything
serious, I'd use NetBeans - for quick, proof-of-concept stuff where I
know most of the stuff, I just use Crimson Editor or Scite.

Cheers,
Mohit.
2009/08/11 | 23:23.

 

[Joel VanderWerf]

I just use Crimson Editor or Scite.

Crimson Editor is about the best I've found for windows, too, which
isn't saying much It's good as a general text editor, but weak on
ruby syntax highlighting and other ruby-specific features. Fortunately,
I don't have to do too much windows these days. Oh, also note that the
crimson ed. source is available and hackable (I hacked the autoindent
feature a bit).

 

[louposk]

I've tested all IDEs and editors available for Ruby and i recommend
you:
e-Texteditor (if you want something simple like a notepad) or NetBeans
for full Ruby functionality highlighting, error correction etc.
I use NetBeans and i think its awsome!

Cheers
Kostas

 

[Robert Klemme]

I've tested all IDEs and editors available for Ruby and i recommend
you:
e-Texteditor (if you want something simple like a notepad) or NetBeans
for full Ruby functionality highlighting, error correction etc.
I use NetBeans and i think its awsome!

I use TextPad for my day to day Ruby scripting. It has good
integration with Windows and is pretty fast. Colleagues use jEdit
which also has Ruby support (among other languages) and is free.

Cheers

robert

 

[Phani Medicharla]

Hi,

I have recently started using Geany [http://geany.org/] and liked it a
lot for Ruby development. It is customizable and reasonably fast.

cheers,
phani

 

[Roger Pack]

the time now. So, can anyone suggest a good Windows editor for Ruby? I
I can't suggest a good one, but I can suggest a work in progress

http://arcadia.rubyforge.org/

gem install arcadia
arcadia

[probably best to just try it with 1.8.6rc2 for now]

-r

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

I'd say SCiTE
http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

It's really just an editor, not an IDE like netbeans, but it works
well, and isn't painful, even on very old slow boxes, it probably has
the overhead of "wordpad". Seriously light, but
It has:
color syntax highlighting
code folding
tabs for each open file
a good search and replace feature
F-keys mapped to build/run/debug functions for your different languages.

 

[Peter Bailey]

I'd say SCiTE
http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

It's really just an editor, not an IDE like netbeans, but it works
well, and isn't painful, even on very old slow boxes, it probably has
the overhead of "wordpad". Seriously light, but
It has:
color syntax highlighting
code folding
tabs for each open file
a good search and replace feature
F-keys mapped to build/run/debug functions for your different languages.

Thank you all. I'm going to try your suggestions. I've downloaded and
installed NetBeans, but, I have to say, like most Java programs, I find
it downright intimidating. I can't just do a plain "run" like I could
with ArachnoRuby.
I've been using TextPad for 15 years. It's incredible, but, I need
something with better de-bugging abilities.
I'll try the others suggested.
Thanks!
Peter

 

[Greg Chambers]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

So far I have used NetBeans, SciTE, and Notepad++ for writing Ruby on
Windows. If you are looking for the lightest software with the most bang
for it's weight, then SciTE is your friend. However, if you need better
debugging support and features you would find in a standard IDE, then I
would try NetBeans. I know this has been said before already, but I thought
I would add some details to my NetBeans experience. I didn't find it that
bad to get it up and running. I just downloaded and installed the JDK and
then installed the version of Ruby MRI. If you are using Ruby 1.9 of
higher, I would suggest getting the newest version of NetBeans since they've
updated the Ruby 1.9 support and is now fairly solid. Before this update, I
would only suggest NetBeans to developers still using Ruby 1.8.6. However,
the NetBeans dev notes do imply some features supported for 1.8.6 hasn't
been modified yet for 1.9, but I don't have specifics for what those are.
But I am using NetBeans currently for my remote test framework project and
it works fine for testing and debugging programs. There are two complaints
I do have with NetBeans. The code completion has left something to be
desired. It can't handle dynamic typing well so half the time it appears,
it just loads the most basic classes and all their methods, which take too
long, in my opinion, to load. My second problem with it is how horrible it
performs if I need to run two Ruby applications at once that need to
communicate with each other. It works... but at least in my cases, not
well. I might as well be waiting for C code to compile. But the debugger
is a nice tool to have as well as the built in repository interfaces.
There's my two cents.
~Greg

 

[Richard Conroy]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Hello,
I've been using ArachnoRuby for years and it's served me well as an
editor, but, now it's showing problems. It doesn't work with Ruby 1.9.
And, it doesn't work with the latest httpclient gem. I use that gem all
the time now. So, can anyone suggest a good Windows editor for Ruby? I
really like to use my editor for troubleshooting, so, of course, it
needs to have full debugging facilities.

Peter,
Notepad++ is fast and tabbed but basic. I don't use it much, buts its a
nice general option.

Also I would promote Netbeans also. It is simply the best environment on
Windows for
serious Ruby programming that I have found. While the start up time is an
issue, I believe
that Netbeans can only be beaten for Ruby programming on windows by another
Java
based IDE (like IntelliJ Rubymine IIRC).

Another interim option, that I haven't seen is ActiveState's Komodo Edit.

Its a step up from a barebones editor like Notepad++, and is quite close to
IDE territory
in terms of features, while still being lightweight and responsive.

regards,
Richard.

 

[Herman Schultz]

Hello,
I've been using ArachnoRuby for years and it's served me well as an
editor, but, now it's showing problems. It doesn't work with Ruby 1.9.
And, it doesn't work with the latest httpclient gem. I use that gem all
the time now. So, can anyone suggest a good Windows editor for Ruby? I
really like to use my editor for troubleshooting, so, of course, it
needs to have full debugging facilities.

SciTe doesn't seem to do the trick for me.

Thanks,
Peter

Komodo Edit (free) has very good syntax highlighting and completion for
Ruby. SVN works right out of the box too. I also like it's command
console. I was able to get my company to buy the updgrade to the IDE
which has a very nice script debugger.

 

[Michael Brooks]

I've tried all the windows editors and IDEs (both ruby oriented and
multi-purpose like UltraEdit). Arachno Ruby ( http://www.ruby-ide.com/ )
was my favorite until support for it disappeared. So I went looking for
another one and found Turbo Ruby ( http://www.embarcadero.com/turboruby ).
It's based on the Eclipse environment / editor. Except for the slighly
annoying project management and help system it's an excellent editor / IDE /
debugger. Sure you need to pay $49~ CND for it but I don't think that's a
lot considering the stuff it does for you.

Michael

 

[JussiJ]

So, can anyone suggest a good Windows editor for Ruby?

Zeus - http://www.zeusedit.com/

 

[Peter Bailey]

Zeus - http://www.zeusedit.com/

Thank you all very much. I'm playing with Zeus now, and, Komodo. I
actually have an ancient copy of Komodo, so I might just splurge for the
upgrade.

-Peter

 

[Michal Suchanek]

Thank you all very much. I'm playing with Zeus now, and, Komodo. I
actually have an ancient copy of Komodo, so I might just splurge for the
upgrade.

Of course, you can always run vim on windows. it is one of The Editors
(and I would be surprised if the other was not ported) but it probably
lacks a debugger.

I would not really know because I only try to debug (as in a debugger)
C code now and then and usually only on processes that are already so
broken that the debugger cannot make any sense of them (or perhaps
there is a pebkac and I cannot make any sense of what the debugger
says about the process) :-S

HTH

Michal

 

[Nathan Beyer]

If you're looking for more than just an editor, i'd suggest trying
RubyMine. I've found it to be pretty good on both Windows and Mac OS
X. It also has nice support for Rails development.

http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/

-Nathan