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Using the Ruby Dev-Tools plug-in for Eclipse

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the more-than-one-way-to-skin-an-app dept.

An anonymous reader writes "IBM Developerworks is running an article that introduces using the Ruby Development Tools (RDT) plug-in for Eclipse, which allows Eclipse to become a first-rate Ruby development environment. Ruby developers who want to learn how to use the rich infrastructure of the Eclipse community to support their language will benefit, as will Java developers who are interested in using Ruby."

14 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. RadRails by TedCheshireAcad · · Score: 5, Informative

    Making use of this and the Eclipse RCP, the RadRails is also making a big contribution to the community.

    1. Re:RadRails by Trejkaz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      RadRails is great, but the setup is a bit of a pain in the butt. I have to tell it where Ruby is, for instance... something it doesn't even need to know. It could just run "ruby" and let the path take care of it.

      But anyway, any steps towards autocompletion and automated code refactoring for Ruby are fine by me. And moving into an IDE which is capable of these things is a step. :-)

      --
      Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
  2. Re:What doesn't Eclipse do? by Coryoth · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think there is a plug in that should scratch just about any itch. Nice.

    Indeed, the Python and Perl plugins are both very nice and from the look of it more featureful than the Ruby plugin at the moment (though I expect it's only a short matter of time before that evens out). I think its more a matter of what languages aren't currently covered? There are apparently plugins for Eiffel and Haskell and Ocaml and SPARK and Scheme (though I can't vouch for quality on any of those) and pretty much anything else you can imagine (given that those were random searches on my part).

    Jedidiah.

    --
    Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
  3. Radrails by augustz · · Score: 5, Informative
    Checkout RadRails

    RadRails is an integrated development environment for the Ruby on Rails framework. The goal of this project is to provide Rails developers with everything they need to develop, manage, test and deploy their applications. Features include source control, debugging, WEBrick servers, generator wizards, syntax highlighting, data tools and much much more.

    The RadRails IDE is built on the Eclipse RCP, and includes plugins from RDT and Subclipse. The RadRails tools are also available as Eclipse plugins.

    Uses RDT plus others, and a nice, clean install.
  4. RDT is good, but... by MarkWatson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... because Ruby is a dynamic language it is more difficult for IDEs to autocomplete, etc.

    I do most of my development in Java, so I mostly use IntelliJ (best Java IDE, IMHO). However, I also really like Eclipse because in one IDE you can code in Java, C++, Ruby, Python, etc.

  5. Ruby..... by james_in_denver · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It rocks...... I'm using Ruby at work to parse millions of lines of source code across 4 different systems and link that back to literally hundreds of requirements documents. The end result is stored in a database and made available via "Ruby on Rails" . It's saved the client literally hundreds of hours of debugging and integration time, and the "documentation"? It never gets out of date... Just run the programs against the source code and document repositories nightly and everything is current.....

    And Eclipse? simply the best development IDE available IMHO...... And all of that in only a few thousand lines of code.....

    1. Re:Ruby..... by geniusj · · Score: 3, Informative

      I come from a C/Perl/Java background, and Ruby just seems too different I can't tell whether it's work taking the time to learn or not.

      Once you learn it, you'll find that it is very consistent throughout development. You don't need to worry about certain syntax not working in certain situations, etc. Language consistency is the main reason I use Ruby. If I don't know it, I can guess and be right 95% of the time. It's almost creepy.

      That said, I'd have to imagine that closures are the main issue you have with Ruby's syntax, since that's really the only part of Ruby's syntax that differs from other scripting languages.

      e.g.

      1.upto(5) do |number|
          puts number
      end
      1
      2
      3
      4
      5

          Just know that closures are incredibly powerful and can be used to simplify a great deal of things. Don't let the use of |s turn you away.

    2. Re:Ruby..... by pivo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I find it hard to believe that someone with a Perl background is complaining that Ruby has a quirky syntax. I think if you spend a little more time with Ruby you'll find that it has a nice, well thought-out syntax. I think you'll also come to think of Perl as the real quirky language.

    3. Re:Ruby..... by Samus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You know, I tried Python for a while. It really is nice with the builtin data structures and the slicing and dicing that you can do with sequences. The whitespace thing is kind of annoying. I like having {} or do end or begin end markers around my code blocks. I think it is one feature that they Python community should just give up on. It really is holding the language back. For example it can't easily be embedded into web pages (has it been truly done at all?) because of the whitespace issue. Just about all of the popular languages out there that can be used to generate web pages just use the language itself for embedding. I remember back in 2000 using the Python ASP integration on windows to embedd Python and it wasn't much fun. Another thing that bothered me about Python were the core modules. They just didn't seem consistent and as well structured as what Java uses. Sure there are weird things in weird places in Java but overall I prefer the class libraries available to Java over the Python ones.

      I'm currently giving Ruby a shot implementing a little project and so far I find it ok but the syntax in Python or Java definitely seem cleaner. Having to use punctuation to help the compiler|interpreter figure out scope (think @'s in front of variables for object vars) is just plain lazyness on the part of the authors.

      The last thing I'm having trouble getting over is the dynamic nature of the languages. Static typing seems to be such a nice warm cozy safety blanket that it is hard to give up. I see where it can be powerful and useful and allow you to take many shortcuts. In fact much of Rails would be impossible without the dyanamic typing and openness of the class structure, but I miss the static class definitions when working with my model objects. It gives me a weird feeling to have to look at the tables themselves so I can figure out what the attributes on my obects are. Yes I know DRY...

      It'll be an interesting next few years to say the least. Maybe Ruby will be the next big thing or maybe something else will. I for one would like to see a revamped Python that took the things they did right and fixed the things they did wrong. Perl 6 anyone?

      --
      In Republican America phones tap you.
  6. Re:What doesn't Eclipse do? by Dan+Farina · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...Truly the emacs of this generation.

    From vi, to emacs, to eclipse (ratios of memory usage in each generation maintained!)

    I actually do not like the eclipse editor component as much as emacs. Ideally, I'd want the GUI-esque browsing/completion/etc of eclipse with the emacs editor. (There have been attempts at this, but none of them feel "right")

    It's also harder to write ad-hoc extensions to an eclipse plugin, which is one large benefit emacs has over it.

    df

  7. Re:trollish comment by JLyle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know you're just trolling (and being honest about it), but I just got back from the fifth annual Ruby Conference. The attendance at this year's conference was three times what it was at last year's, due in no small part to the success of Rails over the last year. The latest Rails book, Agile Web Development with Rails, is hovering around the number two spot on Amazon.com's list of popular "Computers & Internet" books. I'm told that they've sold some 20,000 copies of the book since it was published in July. So, apparently, someone cares...

  8. Does this support dynamic variable highlighting? by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One cool features in Ecipse's native mode is when you click on a variable it highlights every other instance of that variable within your current source. I haven't seen any other IDE's do this and the PHPEclipse plugin doesn't do it either. Does this plugin for Ruby-on-rails support it?

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  9. Nice Ruby OS X editor: TextMate by 5n3ak3rp1mp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A pretty neat Ruby code editor on OS X is TextMate. Some powerful stuff in there if you lie somewhere between the vi/emacs camp and the notepad/bbedit camp...

  10. Re:Why is Ruby gaining such media attention? by TerrapinOrange · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Have you actually tried Ruby? I mean, gave it an honest to goodness chance.. say a dozen or so hours of coding and perhaps the first few chapters of a good reference book? I just find it really hard to believe than anyone who actually knew Ruby's syntax would call it disqusting. It is, by a fairly wide margin, the nicest language I've ever used. Everything is incredibly easy and intuitive. If I don't know how to do something, I can usually guess it on my first or second try, and it makes it so easy to write reusable, modular code that it's stupid not to, even for what appears to be a throwaway program.

    Ruby is hugely productive. Pretty much everything I've ever wanted to do requires less code, less configuration, and simply less hassle than in every other language I've used.

    Now, this is mostly evident when compairing to more traditional statically typed languages like Java and C#, but Ruby's has plenty to offer folks who already use agile languages like Python or Lisp. Ruby has an easy to use and powerful package managment system, Gems. An excellent build tool, Rake. RDoc, a powerful JavaDoc like documentation system. Rails, which is probably the most productive web devleopment platform on the planet. Watir, a web scripting system that makes functional and system testing a breeze. MouseHole, a really slick scriptable proxy. Two extremely well written, freely available books: the first edition of Programming Ruby, and Why's Poignant Guide. An extremely helpful user community. The list goes on and on.

    Maybe you should be asking yourself why you dislike Ruby so much, rather than why everyone else likes it. That's not to say that everyone should like it as much as I do, but I suspect you're missing something important.