ruby IDE's

[marc]

May I recommend that you learn to run it from the command line. It's not
at all hard.

I've done several IDE's, and aside from the need to learn them, and
their bugs, they have the additional disadvantage of keeping you from
seeing what you're really doing.

No they don't!

If anything, they enhance your understanding. Once you know how to drive
the things, they offer you a ton of functionality that is far harder to
accomplish via the CLI.

I use the CLI too, and I'm a big user of gvim, but for project work,
it's simply nuts not to use an IDE.

I'm an absolute amateur with Ruby, and always will be, I now run from
the command line, and use the ruby-debug gem (not yet available in ruby
1.9), and am completely pleased with what I can do. I would never go
back to an IDE. I simply don't see any advantage at all.

Might I suggest that when you have a lot more experience, and spend more
time coding, then the advantages will become very clear.

 

[Xavier Noria]

Well, the question of editors is entirely different from that of IDEs. One
can employ a good editor (I use jEdit, and it's excellent -also platform
independent) without all the front end nonsense of an IDE. Admittedly,
however, for some people an IDE may seem a good idea. But what does it
really do for you?

I use editor + console. I don't launch irb sessions inside IDEs, nor
do I launch servers or execute rake tasks.

But RubyMine for example gives you an editor which is just richer. It
tells you that your code is well/bad formed on the fly, it allows you
to do some refactors robustly, it understands Rails refactors, like
the implications in the file system of refactoring a controller.
Code-completion and jumping to definitions works very decently, open
type, etc. The list of features like this is long. Of course you have
all the goodies in other editors, moving around.

So it is not a matter of IDE versus TM, say, you can use RubyMine just
because of the editor and project management, and still have your
consoles around.

Oh BTW RubyMine is by far my preferred IDE for Ruby/Rails development.

 

[lith]

So it is not a matter of IDE versus TM, say, you can use RubyMine just

because of the editor and project management, and still have your
consoles around.

You could also use Netbeans and still "have your consoles around".

How exactly does RubyMine relate to IntelliJ IDEA? Is it an
independent product? Or is it more like IntelliJ IDEA + Ruby plugin -
everything else?

 

[Xavier Noria]

You could also use Netbeans and still "have your consoles around".

Sure, the editor of your preferred IDE would do for this use pattern.

How exactly does RubyMine relate to IntelliJ IDEA? Is it an
independent product? Or is it more like IntelliJ IDEA + Ruby plugin -
everything else?

It's been ages since I used IntelliJ. I am almost certain RubyMine is
an independent product that shares the undelying IDE engine somehow. I
guess it does because the first versions are rich in IntelliJ non-Java
specific features already.

In my opinion they are going to do for Ruby/Rails what they did for
Java, come to the market with a winner. (Hey just an opinion, no
relationship with them).

Also, there are free licenses for using RubyMine for open source
developers, I didn't need to purchase a license.

 

[James Britt]

Might I suggest that when you have a lot more experience, and spend more
time coding, then the advantages will become very clear.

Please avoid personal attacks.

Disagreement with your preferences != lack of experience, and it's rude
to suggest it.

Thanks,



--
James Britt

www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
www.neurogami.com - Smart application development

 

[Garry Freemyer]

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

The person he replied to said himself that he didn't have much experience. It didn't look like a personal attack to me when he's quoting the guy.



________________________________
From: James Britt <[email protected]>
To: ruby-talk ML <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 10:10:53 AM
Subject: Re: ruby IDE's

Might I suggest that when you have a lot more experience, and spend more
time coding, then the advantages will become very clear.

Please avoid personal attacks.

Disagreement with your preferences != lack of experience, and it's rude to suggest it.

Thanks,



-- James Britt

www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
www.neurogami.com - Smart application development

 

[Robert Dober]

Tom Cloyd wrote:

I use the CLI too, and I'm a big user of gvim, but for project work,
it's simply nuts not to use an IDE.

Well I am nuts then, but that's a well known fact anyway.
However I do not want to argue that IDEs do not have their merits, but
maybe it is worth mentioning that we are hinting a beginner who wants
to learn Ruby.

Might I suggest that when you have a lot more experience, and spend more
time coding, then the advantages will become very clear.

So clear that you are assuming we know them?

Cheers Robert
--=20
Toutes les grandes personnes ont d=92abord =E9t=E9 des enfants, mais peu
d=92entre elles s=92en souviennent.

All adults have been children first, but not many remember.

[Antoine de Saint-Exup=E9ry]

 

[Xavier Noria]

However I do not want to argue that IDEs do not have their merits, but
maybe it is worth mentioning that we are hinting a beginner who wants
to learn Ruby.

I agree with that.

In my view when you learn a technology you better be close the metal.
I've known Java web developers that don't understand what's going on
because they have started directly with the metaphors a framework
gives on top of HTTP. I recommend them to pick a book on bare CGI
programming, nothing like that let's you see how naked web programming
is, and once you know what's going on *then* you are productive and
know what you are doing with a framework.

Similarly, IDEs understood as something you live in hide what's going
on. And that includes the emacs guy that does everything in emacs,
runs irb in emacs, runs the test suite in emacs, runs migrations in
emacs, etc. That is an IDE in my definition of IDE.

To someone who is learning I would recommend to use a simple editor
that does syntax highlighting, and is free, like Smultron or Crimson
editor, and understand the command line and environment which is
natural to your programming language, in addition to PATH, RUBYLIB,
what is a shebang in Unix, etc. I've been teaching Perl in the
university for a few years and that's the way I do it. *Once* you know
the basics, then you can jump to use a tool that let's you manage all
that stuff in a proficient way. But then you are driving, you are in
control, instead of having a bunch of fuzzy concepts that somehow work
together.

 

[marc]

Please avoid personal attacks.

Disagreement with your preferences != lack of experience, and it's rude
to suggest it.

Thanks,

He stated that he was inexperienced - he used the term "absolute
amateur" - so I suggested - note the use of the word - that with a bit
more experience he might further his knowledge. There was no ad
hominem in what I said, unlike what you just wrote; but I'll put that
down to a lack of experience too.

 

[marc]

However I do not want to argue that IDEs do not have their merits, but
maybe it is worth mentioning that we are hinting a beginner who wants
to learn Ruby.

I belive that the hinting that something like netbeans gives you is a
huge benefit to beginners; as well as the inbuilt testing. I could go
on. There are a lot of benefits to a beginner to using an IDE.

I'd certainly recommend Netbeans over gvim or emacs!

So clear that you are assuming we know them?

I assumed nothing, and I have no idea how you incorrectly inferred that.

 

[Robert Dober]

I assumed nothing, and I have no idea how you incorrectly inferred that.

I just meant, please tell us the advantages that become clear!

Sorry if I was not clear.
Robert

--=20
Toutes les grandes personnes ont d=92abord =E9t=E9 des enfants, mais peu
d=92entre elles s=92en souviennent.

All adults have been children first, but not many remember.

[Antoine de Saint-Exup=E9ry]

 

[Tom Cloyd]

James Britt wrote:



He stated that he was inexperienced - he used the term "absolute
amateur" - so I suggested - note the use of the word - that with a bit
more experience he might further his knowledge. There was no ad
hominem in what I said, unlike what you just wrote; but I'll put that
down to a lack of experience too.

James, I'm a big fan of yours, but I'm also keenly aware of poorly
constructed arguments (e.g., ad hominem it bastard brothers). I think I
have to agree with Marc here. I think he was making a legitimate
proposition - in form if not in substance. He may be right, but I cannot
confirm it. And I don't see any hint of ad hominem here. We DO see
things through the lense of our experience. We have little choice.

I will say, however, that after working with a number of IDE's, and
rather enjoying them for their "gee whiz" appeal - all those tools, and
such - retreating from the disaster that Aptana was for a while to mere
jEdit and the CLI was a breath of fresh air for me. I felt, and still
feel, MUCH more directly engaged, and I've gotten a ton of work done
with these tools.

I strongly believe in keeping things as simple as possible. And I should
also mention that while I've designed and run a number of websites, I do
not use Rails and am not likely to. I can see how with Rails something
like Aptana or Netbeans might be peachy. Netbeans might be terrific also
if one was using jruby, which certainly does have some nice
features...but not for me.

Gotta fit the tools to the guy, and his needs, I suspect.

I just don't have time to let things get to complex, and that
undoubtedly drives my preferences.

And I still think beginners should learn to run things without an IDE,
then migrate to that more complex world if it makes sense.

Tom

--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC - Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
<< (e-mail address removed) >> (email)
<< TomCloyd.com >> (website)
<< sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health weblog)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[James Britt]

He stated that he was inexperienced - he used the term "absolute
amateur" - so I suggested - note the use of the word - that with a bit
more experience he might further his knowledge. There was no ad
hominem in what I said, unlike what you just wrote; but I'll put that
down to a lack of experience too.

I'm sorry you choose to spin my mistake as an ad hominem against you.

And sorry you prefer to toss in a pointless comment before reading what
I had to say.

Thanks anyway; I learned something quite useful here, though not about
IDEs.

Chalk it up to experience.


--
James Britt

www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
www.neurogami.com - Smart application development

 

[James Britt]

James, I'm a big fan of yours, but I'm also keenly aware of poorly
constructed arguments (e.g., ad hominem it bastard brothers). I think I
have to agree with Marc here. I think he was making a legitimate
proposition - in form if not in substance. He may be right, but I cannot
confirm it. And I don't see any hint of ad hominem here. We DO see
things through the lense of our experience. We have little choice.

I read too quickly and missed that the OP expressed inexperience. So I
was wrong in assessing the intent of the response, and wrong in my
reply. Mea culpa.

However, absent that bit of info, it is generally insulting to suggest
to someone that their particular opinion is due to a lack a experience
(as opposed to criticism the opinion directly). The "you would think
different if you weren't so inexperienced" line is a common way to knock
down a person rather than the opinion expressed. If nothing else, it's
cheap and dismissive.

Oddly enough, though, I usually see this particular argument going the
other way; people asserting that IDE's are a beginner's crutch, and that
with enough experience people will eventually come around to the One
True Way of Coding.

I don't find *that* any more persuasive, and generally don't see a
connection between experience and IDE preference. It just happens to be
the case with me that more experience has lead me further away from
IDE's, but I know smart, skilled people who are just the opposite.

I will say, however, that after working with a number of IDE's, and
rather enjoying them for their "gee whiz" appeal - all those tools, and
such - retreating from the disaster that Aptana was for a while to mere
jEdit and the CLI was a breath of fresh air for me. I felt, and still
feel, MUCH more directly engaged, and I've gotten a ton of work done
with these tools.

That sounds like my experience as well, preferring multiple consoles,
screen, gvim, tabs, etc. to some monolithic IDE. But certain projects
and languages beg for an IDE (many large Java projects would have been
hell without NetBeans or Eclipse).

I strongly believe in keeping things as simple as possible. And I should
also mention that while I've designed and run a number of websites, I do
not use Rails and am not likely to. I can see how with Rails something
like Aptana or Netbeans might be peachy. Netbeans might be terrific also
if one was using jruby, which certainly does have some nice
features...but not for me.

NetBeans has some sweet refactoring tools, and can't be beat for the GUI
editor, but when I use it I use it in conjunction with gvim so as to not
slow down my basic editing.

Gotta fit the tools to the guy, and his needs, I suspect.

No doubt.



--
James Britt

www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
www.neurogami.com - Smart application development

 

[Robert Dober]

James, I'm a big fan of yours, but I'm also keenly aware of poorly
constructed arguments (e.g., ad hominem it bastard brothers). I think I
have to agree with Marc here. I think he was making a legitimate
proposition - in form if not in substance. He may be right, but I cannot
confirm it.

Nor can he (or nor does he want ) It is easy to tell phrases like
"experience will show [you]"
but there is no useful information at all. So I asked him twice to
provide some...
Your advice however was sound in the way that you clearly stated why a
sophisticated IDE might be harmful for a beginner (Xavier elaborated
nicely).

Given that, poor OP is reading a plethora of posts indicating cool
IDEs and it will be difficult and time consuming for him to chose.

Cheers
Robert

 

[Garry Freemyer]

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

I have Netbeans 6.7 on the Mac Os X platform and its quite an ordeal to get it to install gems without putting it in the wrong directory because it executes installation that requires installation using sudo and does not prompt for the password, so stuff gets installed in the wrong directory.

I agree, that for a beginner like me, it's best to use the command line ... I do not trust the choices Netbeans makes when creating a project, without asking me, and its rather confusing to search for the waldo I need to use every time I turn around.

So, I have been doing the Axe book stuff in command line because if the exercise doesn't work, and I didn't do exactly as told to do, there would be more of that nagging idea that I might not have done it right.

Besides, knowing how to do it without the IDE, will come in handy in that day where the IDE gets upgraded with some nasty bug and you can't use it, or when you do you don't get the expected results.

Example:

Yesterday I learned that simply because some thing has been out for awhile and few are complaining doesn't mean its working ... I had been trying to use jEdit as my editor but the Ruby Plugin it uses, was accidentally compiled with a later java than a lot of folks have on their machines.

Trying to find the correct java for this Mac is a nightmare, of confusion, nothing is clear, everything is ambiguous. I see stuff called J Something 5 that claims to install version 6 of j something and vice versa.

Lesson: The more complex tools you use to build a project, the more chances things will go wrong due to bugs in the tools.



________________________________
From: Robert Dober <[email protected]>
To: ruby-talk ML <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:43:51 AM
Subject: Re: ruby IDE's

James, I'm a big fan of yours, but I'm also keenly aware of poorly
constructed arguments (e.g., ad hominem it bastard brothers). I think I
have to agree with Marc here. I think he was making a legitimate
proposition - in form if not in substance. He may be right, but I cannot
confirm it.

Nor can he (or nor does he want ) It is easy to tell phrases like
"experience will show [you]"
but there is no useful information at all. So I asked him twice to
provide some...
Your advice however was sound in the way that you clearly stated why a
sophisticated IDE might be harmful for a beginner (Xavier elaborated
nicely).

Given that, poor OP is reading a plethora of posts indicating cool
IDEs and it will be difficult and time consuming for him to chose.

Cheers
Robert

 

[Tom Cloyd]

I have Netbeans 6.7 on the Mac Os X platform and its quite an ordeal to get it to install gems without putting it in the wrong directory because it executes installation that requires installation using sudo and does not prompt for the password, so stuff gets installed in the wrong directory.

Yeah - these things like to do things in their own way, and rarely is
that "way" made transparent to us peons, especially us amateur peons.
Not helpful.

I agree, that for a beginner like me, it's best to use the command line ... I do not trust the choices Netbeans makes when creating a project, without asking me, and its rather confusing to search for the waldo I need to use every time I turn around.

So, I have been doing the Axe book stuff in command line because if the exercise doesn't work, and I didn't do exactly as told to do, there would be more of that nagging idea that I might not have done it right.

Yes - it's about minimizing your problems BEFORE they appear. A favorite
tactic of mine.

Besides, knowing how to do it without the IDE, will come in handy in that day where the IDE gets upgraded with some nasty bug and you can't use it, or when you do you don't get the expected results.

Absolutely. Also, if you need to set up a work environment on another OS
or machine, the simpler your set-up the quicker you'll be working, and
the less likely you'll run itno idiosyncrasies with which you're not
familiar.

Example:
[...] I had been trying to use jEdit as my editor but the Ruby Plugin it uses, was accidentally compiled with a later java than a lot of folks have on their machines.

Trying to find the correct java for this Mac is a nightmare

[...]

Sorry you're having trouble with this. A shame. I truly appreciate this
editor, and the ruby plugin, while not necessary, is truly useful. I
can't offer help, as I know nothing of Macs.

[...]

Lesson: The more complex tools you use to build a project, the more chances things will go wrong due to bugs in the tools.

[...]

Your conclusion is precisely what I was trying to express. And...beyond
tool bugs is the problem (as you point out) of complex tools modifying a
work environment in puzzling ways which simply add to the learning burden.

Things really took off for me in Ruby when I started working from the
command line. I finally began to get a good a basic understanding of
some key matters. I even worked up to compiling from source. I thank
this list for giving the support I needed to get to this level of
(modest) achievement, but I set things up right for myself by keeping my
work environment simple.

I recommend the same tactic for other beginners.

Tom

--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC - Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
<< (e-mail address removed) >> (email)
<< TomCloyd.com >> (website)
<< sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health weblog)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Hassan Schroeder]

Trying to find the correct java for this Mac is a nightmare, of confusion, nothing is clear, everything is ambiguous. I see stuff called J Something 5 that claims to install version 6 of j something and vice versa.

While not totally consistent naming-wise, I'm not sure how

Java SE 6 64-bit
J2SE 5.0 64-bit
J2SE 5.0 32-bit
J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit

is particularly ambiguous

And for the sake of discussion I use vi, jEdit and NetBeans for
Rails development, but do things like installing gems and running
console and server from the command line because it just works.

FWIW,

 

[Garry Freemyer]

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

Well, take the last two lines J2SE 5.0 J2SE 1.4.2

How can there be two versions of the same program called J2SE??

Yeah I like jEdit, except I can't get the RubyPlugin to work on this mac because I can't find the right version of java to install - its compiled with some Java thing that's a later version than on my machine. . I look at the sites and its like a guessing game of which is the real one I need to install.

I could go installing willy nilly but I am afraid my guessing around is going to break something else.

-----------------

From: Hassan Schroeder <[email protected]>
To: ruby-talk ML <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 6:20:39 PM
Subject: Re: ruby IDE's

Trying to find the correct java for this Mac is a nightmare, of confusion, nothing is clear, everything is ambiguous. I see stuff called J Something 5 that claims to install version 6 of j something and vice versa.

While not totally consistent naming-wise, I'm not sure how

Java SE 6 64-bit
J2SE 5.0 64-bit
J2SE 5.0 32-bit
J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit

is particularly ambiguous

And for the sake of discussion I use vi, jEdit and NetBeans for
Rails development, but do things like installing gems and running
console and server from the command line because it just works.

FWIW,

 

[Hassan Schroeder]

Well, take the last two lines J2SE 5.0 J2SE 1.4.2

How can there be two versions of the same program called J2SE??

How can there be two versions of the same program?

Uh, what?

Like, how can there be a "Mac OS 10.5.6" and a "Mac OS 10.5.7"?

How can there be a "Ruby 1.8.6" and "Ruby 1.8.7" and "Ruby 1.9.1"

OMFG!! DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!!!!

Seriously -- "how can there be two versions of ..."?? What??