Using netbeans as a Ruby IDE

[Sharon Phillips]

Up till now I've been using Scite on Windows and Smultron on OS X for
Ruby development. I've also been using Netbeans for about 12 months
for Java, but it looks like it may be time for a change as Netbeans
is now adding some pretty decent Ruby support.

Here's a short video showing some of the things that got me interested:
http://www.netbeans.org/download/flash/jruby_editing/jruby_editing.html

Only downside so far is that Netbeans is no lightweight. Scite,
though lacking a few things, has a brilliant startup time and as such
is very practical for quick scripts etc. Netbeans takes nearly a
minute to load on my work machine (old and under-specced) which is
fine for a project I'll spend the next few hours on, but not much fun
for a quick job.

How are other people finding Netbeans as a Ruby IDE?

Cheers,
Dave

 

[John Joyce]

Spring for TextMate, it's not free but it really is worth it.
Starts fast as can be.

 

[Mark Watson]

Spring for TextMate, it's not free but it really is worth it.
Starts fast as can be.

I agree, TextMate is worth the money. I am also finding the Ruby and
Rails support in IntelliJ to be very useful. I tend to use TextMate
for small Ruby projects and for a "background code browser" when
working with Common Lisp+Emacs on large systems. I like IntelliJ
better for Rails work.

I tried NetBeans+Ruby and it was not the joyful experience that
TextMate or IntelliJ provided, but I expect NetBean's Ruby support to
get better fast.

-Mark Watson, author and consultant
-www.markwatson.com for free web books