Ruby IDE

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

emacs is an interesting operating system, too bad it has such a crappy
text editor...

-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts.
It's what I can remember in time to use.

Bah! emacs isn't a text editor and it isn't an operating system. It's a
Lisp interpreter that you talk to using three-finger salutes. --
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
ruby-perspectives.blogspot.com

"A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." --
Alfréd Rényi via Paul Erdős

 

[Joshua Ballanco]

emacs is an interesting operating system, too bad it has such a crappy
text editor...

-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts.
It's what I can remember in time to use.

This will never end...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_wars

(there's a few good chuckles to be found in the links)

 

[Charles Oliver Nutter]

NetBeans
Like I said, I love using NetBeans but:
* It's a pain when you just need to edit one or two files.
* It's a pain for small projects & one off scripts.
* It's rather slow to load up.

I haven't tried it yet but I've heard from others 6.5 is tighter and
faster in a lot of areas, so it's probably worth giving a try (still in
dev mode at the moment, but I know several people running the dev builds).

- Charlie

 

[Pablo Q.]

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

I love NetBeans too, another cool stuff is the easy way to put subversion
and netbeans together. Now I have all my scripts secure in an backup server.

 

[Michel Demazure]

I haven't tried it yet but I've heard from others 6.5 is tighter and
faster in a lot of areas, so it's probably worth giving a try (still in
dev mode at the moment, but I know several people running the dev
builds).

- Charlie

I use Netbeans (dev builds) regularly and find it good. The refactoring
tools work well.

 

[Martin DeMello]

This will never end...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_wars

(there's a few good chuckles to be found in the links)

"I just want an EDitor! Not a "viitor". Not an "emacsitor". Those
aren't even WORDS!!!!"

martin

 

[James Dinkel]

I've recently discovered EasyEclipse. They have old versions of the
RadRails and RDT from before Aptana ruined them (I'm not sure, but they
may have even forked the old versions and are doing bugfixes and updates
to them).

There is a known bug when creating a new Rails project - the wizard does
not close (just click cancel after it's created) and Webrick and Mongrel
servers are not created (they are VERY easy to create manually). This
is really just an annoyance and still way better than dealing with all
the Aptana junk.

If you liked the old pre-Aptana RadRails, but want something updated,
then EasyEclipse is the way to go. Personally, I don't download the
whole EasyEclipse for Ruby and Rails distribution, I just download the
bare Eclipse Platform Runtime and add the RadRails and RDT plugins from
EasyEclipse to it. This gives a nice fast and slim install at about
80megs which is also easily portable if you want to copy the folder to a
USB flash drive. Since it's Eclipse, you can also add from the plethora
of Eclipse plugins to suit your needs.

My problem with Netbeans is it was too big, a little slower than
Eclipse, definately not portable, and I missed the old RadRails layout.
If you are not already spoiled by the old RadRails and don't mind the
size, then you may like starting out with Netbeans.

For just a file editor, Notepad++ is ok for Windows. I liked Notepad2
better, but it only has Ruby support in a patched version which is quite
out-of-date.

 

[Martin Krauskopf]

James Dinkel wrote:
[...]

My problem with Netbeans is it was too big

Download size (of 6.5dev) is ± 55MB. We bundle JRuby which also
increases size a bit. We are planning kind of lightweight Ruby IDE
without JRuby, Glassfish, etc. as a choice.

[...]

definately not portable

Not sure what you mean by this. If OS portability, we run Linux, Mac,
Windows, Solaris, .. <where-JVM-runs-OSes>.

m.

 

[James Dinkel]

James Dinkel wrote:

Download size (of 6.5dev) is ± 55MB. We bundle JRuby which also
increases size a bit. We are planning kind of lightweight Ruby IDE
without JRuby, Glassfish, etc. as a choice.

Unless I was mistaken, it required the JDK which is like another 100MB.

Not sure what you mean by this. If OS portability, we run Linux, Mac,
Windows, Solaris, .. <where-JVM-runs-OSes>.

What I meant was being able to copy it to a USB flash drive and just
plug it in and run the program. I keep RadRails (switching to the
EasyEclipse stuff I mentioned) and a program called Flash Rails
(http://flashrails.rubyforge.org) on my USB drive and I can have my
complete Ruby development environment anywhere. I think Eclipse
probably requires the JRE, but I almost never come across a computer
without the JRE. I can run everything from the flash drive, even with
restricted user permissions, and leave nothing behind on the computer.

I don't know if this is/was an intended usage of RadRails and/or
Eclipse, but it has been very handy for me. It lets me easily move
between home and work (or anywhere else), and I've even had the
opportunity to plug it in and show it to some non-Ruby developer
friends.

James

 

[Christophe Mckeon]

Yikes!

Assuming that by TextEditor you mean Gedit, I'd have to say Yikes.not

Gedit is actually a really nice lightweight code editor.
It can do a lot more than people think. I did a writeup on it
on using it with ruby here:

http://crepuscular-homunculus.blogspot.com/2007/10/gedit-for-ruby-and-everything-else-on.html

 

[Alexei Broner]

The newest NetBeans is great. I use it for Ruby, Groovy, and Java and it
excels at all of them. I'm forced to use Eclipse at work and I would
stay away from it or any of it's variants.

I prefer to do most of my coding in a text editor. I use TextMate
because I'm fortunate enough to have a mac. On linux I use gedit. It's
better than any other graphical editor I've used besides TextMate. Make
sure you look into gedit's plugins feature. I use several plugins;
snippets, regex search and replace, external tools, file browser pane,
indent lines, line tools, split view, and word completion.

vi is a much more powerful editor but it has a steep learning curve.
emacs is also very powerful, with a different type of steep learning
curve.

I would say that vi one of the most important things you can learn on
unix, however I've been too lazy to do so myself so far and gedit has
served me well. I have intent to learn vi soon.

 

[Reid Thompson]

Unless I was mistaken, it required the JDK which is like another 100MB.



What I meant was being able to copy it to a USB flash drive and just
plug it in and run the program. I keep RadRails (switching to the
EasyEclipse stuff I mentioned) and a program called Flash Rails
(http://flashrails.rubyforge.org) on my USB drive and I can have my
complete Ruby development environment anywhere. I think Eclipse
probably requires the JRE, but I almost never come across a computer
without the JRE. I can run everything from the flash drive, even with
restricted user permissions, and leave nothing behind on the computer.

I don't know if this is/was an intended usage of RadRails and/or
Eclipse, but it has been very handy for me. It lets me easily move
between home and work (or anywhere else), and I've even had the
opportunity to plug it in and show it to some non-Ruby developer
friends.

James

http://homepage2.nifty.com/sakazuki/rde_en/ may run from a USB drive..???

 

[Charles Oliver Nutter]

=20
Unless I was mistaken, it required the JDK which is like another 10=

0MB.

For Windows, JDK appears to be 77MB, which is admittedly big, but it'=
s=20
not 100MB. I didn't check other platforms. And NetBeans does say it=
=20
depends on JDK to "install and run". So basing off 6.1's Ruby-only si=
ze=20
(29MB) the total would be about 106MB. I'm not sure about the size of=
=20
the dev builds; that may be a final size or it may not, so we'll=20
discount that for the moment.

Checking EasyEclipse, the Windows download size for the Ruby/Rails=
=20
version (not including a JRE) is 112MB. If we go by your size estimat=
e=20
of 80MB, that's still only 26MB smaller than NetBeans *plus* the enti=
re=20
JDK (and still no JRE included).

And Eclipse is even less portable than NetBeans; it must be downloade=
d=20
for a specific platform, because the whole GUI is based on native cod=
e=20
and native components. You can't run the same Eclipse on a Windows bo=
x=20
as you would on a Linux box, for example. I believe that's possible w=
ith=20
NetBeans, though perhaps not directly supported by the existing=20
installers. In theory though, it's all Swing components.

But basically, I don't see where the big size difference you're talki=
ng=20
about is.

=20
What I meant was being able to copy it to a USB flash drive and jus= t=20
plug it in and run the program. I keep RadRails (switching to the= =20
EasyEclipse stuff I mentioned) and a program called Flash Rails= =20
(http://flashrails.rubyforge.org) on my USB drive and I can have my= =20
complete Ruby development environment anywhere. I think Eclipse= =20
probably requires the JRE, but I almost never come across a compute= r=20
without the JRE. I can run everything from the flash drive, even w= ith=20
restricted user permissions, and leave nothing behind on the comput=

er.

I presume you're running this Eclipse install on the same OS every ti=
me,=20
or Eclipse has started including native binaries for multiple platfor=
ms.=20
Can you confirm which?

Hopefully this doesn't come off too "rah-rah" NetBeans. There's just=
=20
some factual issues I thought should be corrected.

- Charlie

 

[Martin Krauskopf]

Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
[...]

I believe that's possible with NetBeans, though perhaps not directly
supported by the existing installers

There are platform independent archives which might be used (unzipped)
instead of installer:

6.1:
http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.1/final/zip/

6.5 (continuous builds):
http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/trunk/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/nbbuild/dist/zip/

m.

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

Scite used to run on Windows -- did that change?

For some reason, I thought that SCiTe only ran on windows, until I
went to download it for a co-worker who needed a better text editor
with syntax highlighting on his windows box, and saw some *nix build
instructions and stuff.

Pretty easy build, runs great in X

--Kyle

 

[James Dinkel]

For Windows, JDK appears to be 77MB, which is admittedly big, but it's
not 100MB.

The compressed download is 77MB, but that is not the install size. I
thought I was being conservative with 100 MB, so I did an install in a
virtual machines and the install size for JDK, choosing all defaults, is
a whopping 583.4 MB!

I didn't check other platforms. And NetBeans does say it
depends on JDK to "install and run". So basing off 6.1's Ruby-only size
(29MB) the total would be about 106MB.

Again, that 29MB is the compressed download. After installation the
Ruby-only Netbeans 6.1 takes up an addition 110.4MB. That would put the
total install size at 693.8MB which would take up 2/3rds of my 1.0GB
flash drive, if it's even possible to embed the JDK and use in a
portable way.

Checking EasyEclipse, the Windows download size for the Ruby/Rails
version (not including a JRE) is 112MB. If we go by your size estimate
of 80MB, that's still only 26MB smaller than NetBeans *plus* the entire
JDK (and still no JRE included).

The extracted size of the full blown Ruby/Rails version of EasyEclipse
is 163.9MB, even if I include the JRE, which I _think_ installs at about
150MB, that puts the total at about 315MB which is just under half the
size of the Netbeans footprint.

Considering that JRE is installed on almost every computer anyway, and I
actually use "Eclipse Platform Runtime" + "EasyEclipse RadRails Plugin"
+ "EasyEclipse RDT Plugin" which all extracted and installed comes to
66.3MB. So what I actually use is 9.6% the size of the minimum (as far
as I can tell) install of Netbeans for Ruby/Rails.

And Eclipse is even less portable than NetBeans; it must be downloaded
for a specific platform, because the whole GUI is based on native code
and native components. You can't run the same Eclipse on a Windows box
as you would on a Linux box, for example.

Unfortunately, I only need it to be portable between Windows computers.
I could, however, keep Windows, Linux, and Mac (though I have not used
or known someone even had a Mac for years) on my flash drive and still
take up less space than Netbeans.

I presume you're running this Eclipse install on the same OS every time,
or Eclipse has started including native binaries for multiple platforms.
Can you confirm which?

I'm only using Eclipse on Windows, but a quick look on their website and
they do have downloads for Mac, linux, AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX.

 

[James Dinkel]

Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
[...]

I believe that's possible with NetBeans, though perhaps not directly
supported by the existing installers

There are platform independent archives which might be used (unzipped)
instead of installer:

6.1:
http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.1/final/zip/

6.5 (continuous builds):
http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/trunk/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/nbbuild/dist/zip/

m.

This is a nice find. I downloaded and unzipped 6.1 Ruby/Rails version
and it ran just fine on a computer that did not have the JDK. This
makes me really wonder why the installer would not continue without
having the JDK installed. Since I don't have the JDK (just the JRE), I
wonder if the extracted Netbeans will eventually run in to problems? I
don't think I'll explore it's usage now, but I would be curious to know.

James

 

[James Dinkel]

http://homepage2.nifty.com/sakazuki/rde_en/ may run from a USB
drive..???

Maybe, but why would I want to? It doesn't look like it even has any
Rails features. If it's about getting something as small as possible, I
still want it to be something usable. ;-)

 

[Martin Krauskopf]

James Dinkel wrote:
[...]

This is a nice find. I downloaded and unzipped 6.1 Ruby/Rails version
and it ran just fine on a computer that did not have the JDK. This
makes me really wonder why the installer would not continue without
having the JDK installed.

Good question:

http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=127678

I've did not follow the issue closely.

Since I don't have the JDK (just the JRE), I
wonder if the extracted Netbeans will eventually run in to problems? I
don't think I'll explore it's usage now, but I would be curious to know.

I think you should be ok, unless you use some, ummm.... Glassfish
feature(?), which requires JDK, I think... really not sure, what it was
exactly. I just remember it was something like this from a discussion
somewhere else. The rest of Ruby/Rails feature should work fine.

However, I've never tried it myself without JDK.

m.

 

[Charles Oliver Nutter]

This is a nice find. I downloaded and unzipped 6.1 Ruby/Rails version
and it ran just fine on a computer that did not have the JDK. This
makes me really wonder why the installer would not continue without
having the JDK installed. Since I don't have the JDK (just the JRE), I
wonder if the extracted Netbeans will eventually run in to problems? I
don't think I'll explore it's usage now, but I would be curious to know.

Yeah, I'm not sure either. The JDK dependency did strike me as a little
odd, especially since unless you're doing Java compilation there's
really not that much more in the JDK other than compiler/build tools and
sources. So I'd be pretty surprised if the standalone NetBeans Ruby IDE
didn't work just fine without a full JDK present.

It's possible that the JDK dependency is just there because most of the
NetBeans distributions include Java support. Who knows...

But of course, I always have a JDK present and I'm doing as much Java as
Ruby, so I wouldn't know what issues you might run into.

- Charlie