[Rails] 'Best' IDE for testing and debugging

[Matt Torok]

On 2/17/06, Hogan, Brian P. <HOGANBP at uwec.edu> wrote:
> Bill:
>
> If you're interested in Eclipse and RDT, I might suggest the setup I use
> in my development. I find it much more useful than RadRails*** but you
> have to build it yourself. (I do provide downloadable configuration
> files and templates to speed up the process.
>
> http://www.napcs.com/howto/railsonwindows.html
>
> Screens here:
> http://www.napcs.com/howto/railsonwindows-screens.html
>
>
> *** RadRails http://www.radrails.org is coming along nicely though.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rails-bounces at lists.rubyonrails.org
> [mailto:rails-bounces at lists.rubyonrails.org] On Behalf Of Mark Wilden
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 3:48 PM
> To: rails at lists.rubyonrails.org
> Subject: Re: [Rails] 'Best' IDE for testing and debugging
>
>
> > On 2/17/06, Bill Walton <bill.walton at charter.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> I'm trying to decide which IDE to go with for RoR development.  I put
>
> >> a
> >> high
> >> premium on integrated test automated tools and debugging
> capabilities.
> >> I'd
> >> appreciate any sharing of experience.
>
> I'm using Eclipse with Ruby Development Tools. I don't tend to use the
> debugger very often, but it does work. The unit testing facilities are
> fine.
> And there's the extensibility of Eclipse (for example, I use the vi
> plug-in).
>
> In fact, I've gone off the Rails for a bit to play around with Eclipse
> plug-in development.
>
> ///ark
>
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>

Does Eclipse, in any form, support code completion and/or code
formatting? By code completion I don't mean diving my method names
from objects, but more like when I type "def foo", it automatically
inserts "end" below it. Same thing for code formatting, when I type
"def foo" or "if object.empty?", it'll automatically indent me two
more spaces when hit enter, end  un-indent me when I type "end".

It's a deal-breaker for me and when I last tried Eclipse it didn't do
this. Am I just ignorant about how to turn this on?

Also, I've been mighty disappointed in Komodo. I loved Komodo for PHP
work, but it just isn't Ruby ready. The RHTML support is awful, the
debugging breaks your scripts more often than it works, and it lacks
all but the most basic niceties for Ruby editing.

Unfortunately, the best editor I've found that'll run on Windows is
jEdit. I say unfortunately because, being written in Java + SWING,
it's slow as all get out to use. It just has that sluggish Java bloat
to it that we all know and hate. It also takes a whole 'lotta
configuration to get up and running in any usable way. But even with
all of that, it still works the best. At least until UltraEdit gets
Ruby support or Komodo cleans up its act.

Really, a good editor is one of my biggest hang-ups with using Rails.
I love the framework to death, but actually writing code for it is an
excercise in constant frustration. I really wish TextMate would be
ported to Windows, it would really help Rails adoptation.

--
-Matt Torok