Need help finding decent IDE/development environment for Windows

[Doug Kearns]

Yeah, I generally have mappings like
:wall<CR>:!ruby %<CR>

Which will save all open files and run the current file.

You both might like to have a look at the compiler plugin which will run
the given file and allow you to jump to the location of any resulting
syntax errors, exceptions etc.

:compiler ruby
:make %

<snip>

Regards,
Doug

 

[James Edward Gray II]

I agree. Although Ruby has potential, it still appears to be a
language for small systems/utilities. Partly because of the tools
support, partly because of performance, partly because it is
"new" (ish).

I've been watching this list for over a year now and I don't remotely
believe the above. I think you might want to look into some of the
things Rubyists are doings. I expect to to be surprised.

Ruby seems to be at the stage of Java 0.9.. i.e. 1 set of command
line tools and loads of "learning applets" to play with.

Again this, does not jive with what I see here every single day. Did
you read Ara's post earlier tonight about the image analysis of
hurricane Katrina being done with Ruby, by NOAA?

Its going to be a few years and something like "RBuilder" (c.f.
JBuilder) to get people using it to solve real problems...

I believe it's my job to manage complexity, as the programmer, not
the IDE's job. Tools are nice, but that has little to do with what I
can and can't manage.

James Edward Gray II

 

[jussij]

I believe it's my job to manage complexity, as the programmer,

not the IDE's job.

Most wise words indeed.

Lots of programmers like to leave the task of project management
up to the IDE. But this can be dangerous, as many times the IDE
will get into trouble with the project management, especially as
the complexity grows.

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows

 

[Andrew Stuart]

I worked on a project once where an IDE was appointed as Project Manager - I
think it was Visual Studio actually. It wasn't such a big success - the IDE
didn't say much in meetings and wasn't very proactive in managing the
people, project, timelines, deliverables and politics. Certainly it was a
friendly IDE, but you need so much more than that in a Project Manager. I
really think a person is a much stronger choice for Project Manager although
some organisations will continue to choose an IDE as Project Manager.


----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ruby
To: "ruby-talk ML" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 2:06 PM
Subject: Re: Need help finding decent IDE/development environment for
Windows

I believe it's my job to manage complexity, as the programmer,
not the IDE's job.

Most wise words indeed.

Lots of programmers like to leave the task of project management
up to the IDE. But this can be dangerous, as many times the IDE
will get into trouble with the project management, especially as
the complexity grows.

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows

 

[Edward Faulkner]

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=20
I agree. Although Ruby has potential, it still appears to be a language= =20
for small systems/utilities.=20

You misunderstand me. Ruby is quite capable of tackling large,
complicated problems. =20

People coming from a static-language background expect to need IDEs
because they underestimate the power and brevity of a dynamic language
like Ruby. Once they've replaced their 10,000 lines of Java with
1,000 lines of Ruby, perhaps their IDE will begin to seem less
important.

Or perhaps I'm just biased against IDEs. I've never liked them much
myself.

By the way, it appears rather difficult to make a Ruby IDE with
tab-completion, because you can't know in advance the type of any
object, and methods may be added and changed on the fly. =20

regards,
Ed

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[Joe Van Dyk]

=20
You both might like to have a look at the compiler plugin which will run
the given file and allow you to jump to the location of any resulting
syntax errors, exceptions etc.
=20
:compiler ruby
:make %

I actually looked into that for the first time yesterday.

I think I created a mapping like
:map <F6>:wall!<CR>:mak % \| :cwin<CR>

saves the files, runs make, and displays an error window at the bottom
there. Then I can skip around to all the places that have exceptions.=20
Pretty nifty.

 

[Damphyr]

snip

I believe it's my job to manage complexity, as the programmer, not
the IDE's job. Tools are nice, but that has little to do with what I
can and can't manage.

I agree.
Good thinking, solid design, clear interfaces and proper error
checking/testing are what reduce complexity.
All this help (code completion, error checking etc.) is nice but it
doesn't speed up my work much (if you type fast enough it takes about
the same time to navigate the code completion stuff as to write the
whole call).
Looking up API documentation takes a larger percentage of my time than
typing the call. If I have to know all the C++/STL library calls by
heart, along with the ridiculous amount of Java APIs and all the nice
little Ruby libs, then what am I doing owning a computer and accessing
the internet?
Nope, a decent editor and lots of searchable reference documentation is
what most of us need.
Cheers,
V.-



____________________________________________________________________
http://www.freemail.gr - äùñåÜí õðçñåóßá çëåêôñïíéêïý ôá÷õäñïìåßïõ.
http://www.freemail.gr - free email service for the Greek-speaking.

 

[Rob .]

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=20
By the way, it appears rather difficult to make a Ruby IDE with
tab-completion, because you can't know in advance the type of any
object, and methods may be added and changed on the fly.

The jEdit Ruby Editor Plugin has code completion for the core types based=
=20
on a naive type inference algorithm, which can be summarized as "if it=20
quacks like a duck, it'll probably waddle like a duck":
http://www.jedit.org/ruby/
Cheers,
Rob

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[Rob .]

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I personally use JEdit for my Ruby work (well, learning it at least),
and while I'd love something with more autocomplete abilities and
better syntax checking, that's it.

Jacob are you using the jEdit Ruby Editor Plugin?
For everyone on this thread:
The jEdit Ruby Editor Plugin provides type based method-completion for the=
=20
Ruby core classes, syntax error checking via the JRuby parser and has an=20
integrated RDoc viewer. The install is rough, many seem to like it, I inten=
d=20
to put more work into it over the Northern Hemisphere winter, it's free=20
software under the GPL, take it or leave it, but feedback is welcome, I giv=
e=20
you the Ruby Editor Plugin for jEdit:
http://www.jedit.org/ruby/
Cheers,
Rob

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[Florian Groß]

Paul, jEdit + the Ruby Editor Plugin meets many of your needs:
- good syntax highlighting (yes)
- code completion (yes)
- auto indentation (yes)
- tabbed view of open files (yes)
- project view or a folder view of files (yes)
- works for .rb and .rhtml files (yes, I think with a bit of config work)
- debugging (no)
- support for rails (no) - what do you mean by this?

Let me second this. I've been fairly happy with jEdit and two consoles
for ruby-breakpoint and a tail -f on the log.

It would be wonderful if there was a way of getting rid of the tail -f
with jEdit as the logs can get quite big (5 - 10 MB) and jEdit doesn't
handle that kind of file size too well. Any ideas?

Another thing that is not quite perfect is the integration of the XML
and Ruby mode for .rhtml files -- it would be nice if there was a way of
getting the XML plug in to ignore <% %> style constructs, but slava
wasn't really much in favor of this back when I asked him about it.

I'm also sort of working on an IDE for ruby-breakpoint[0], but please
don't expect too much as this is a private project and I can't even drag
& drop the GUI together. I've also heard that ActiveState is working on
a graphical Ruby debugger.

Personally, I'm still quite happy with an IRB shell and just asking
questions to my objects.

[0] http://flgr.dyndns.org/highlights-all-the-way.png

 

[Kevin Brown]

I agree. Although Ruby has potential, it still appears to be a language
for small systems/utilities. Partly because of the tools support, partly
because of performance, partly because it is "new" (ish).

If you have a complex problem to solve, choosing the "wrong language" to
write a solution can make your task more difficult, but even Ruby cannot
make intrinsically complex systems simple.

I disagree. I'm currently writing a complete Magazine Subscription
fulfillment database backend with front end in Ruby. It's no problem, even
though the system is complex The backend is about 90% complete and the front
end is about 30 percent complete.

Now granted, if ANY application in ANY language is so large you can't
understand it without an IDE, the problem is not the size, but your design.
Anyway, I do everything with 2 terminal windows open and Kate to edit the
files. No problems there.

 

[Randy Kramer]

Most wise words indeed.

Lots of programmers like to leave the task of project management
up to the IDE. But this can be dangerous, as many times the IDE
will get into trouble with the project management, especially as
the complexity grows.

I believe it's my job to get as much done as I can--the more I can leave (or
push) to the computer the better. Maybe an IDE isn't the tool to manage the
complexity you're talking about--then we (you/me/whoever) should be looking
to improve or replace the tool. ;-)

regards,
Randy Kramer

 

[tony summerfelt]

graham wrote on 9/7/2005 7:56 PM:

will probably join the backwater of "almost" or niche languages like
Effiel, Forth, Modula-2, Pascal(?), Lisp, D..... (the list is endless).

i'm not sure i'd put pascal in the 'backwater' category. maybe 'not
used as much'. borland had the pc programming market pretty much tied
up with turbo pascal 1. and the dos text mode interface that everyone
else copied by version 3.

pascal lives on today as delphi. you could probably reproduce a
complex delphi program just using vim, but i don't know of any delphi
developer that would want to.

i'm a touch typist so vim works especially well for me in just about
all the code i work on...

but when it comes to switching between several files, debugging,
testing an ide is more convenient. yeah i can do most of it in vim,
but the cirque de soleil keyboard acrobatics don't make sense compared
to a few mouse clicks.

 

[Austin Ziegler]

graham wrote on 9/7/2005 7:56 PM:
i'm not sure i'd put pascal in the 'backwater' category. maybe 'not
used as much'. borland had the pc programming market pretty much tied
up with turbo pascal 1. and the dos text mode interface that everyone
else copied by version 3.
=20
pascal lives on today as delphi. you could probably reproduce a
complex delphi program just using vim, but i don't know of any delphi
developer that would want to.

When I was doing some Delphi work 18 months ago, I did 90% of my
development outside of the Delphi environment and in vim. I used
Delphi for method completion and compiling only.

I work similarly with VisualStudio.

-austin
--=20
Austin Ziegler * (e-mail address removed)
* Alternate: (e-mail address removed)

 

[tony summerfelt]

Austin Ziegler wrote on 9/9/2005 9:54 AM:

When I was doing some Delphi work 18 months ago, I did 90% of my
development outside of the Delphi environment and in vim. I used
Delphi for method completion and compiling only.

i tried that with both delphi and c++builder and it was just too
painful. i really didn't feel like setting up vim for each ide i was
trying to replace

it's a great text editor for touch typists though. i usualy start all
my code with vim first...

 

[Martin DeMello]

When I was doing some Delphi work 18 months ago, I did 90% of my
development outside of the Delphi environment and in vim. I used
Delphi for method completion and compiling only.

I work similarly with VisualStudio.

Same here, in both cases.

martin

 

[jussij]

By the way, it appears rather difficult to make a Ruby IDE

with tab-completion

The Zeus for Windows programmer's editor has a generic form
of code completion that derives it's information from the
tags generated by Exuberant Ctags.

The Exuberant Ctags lists Ruby as one of the supported
languages:

http://ctags.sourceforge.net/languages.html

so in theory this means the Zeus, Ruby code completion
should work in some limited fashion.

because you can't know in advance the type of any object,
and methods may be added and changed on the fly.

This form of dynamic code completion is definitely very
difficult to implement as it requires the editor/IDE to
have built-in knowledge of the language.

But for the more static type of coding, where some form
of ctags information is generated, a limited form of code
completion should be available.

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows
Note: Zeus is shareware (45 day trial).