I’m looking for a simple text editor for Ruby to work under WinXP SP2.
Must have:
syntax colouring (of course)
an incorporated window that shows your code working, even when your
code requires gets input
option to turn background to black and adjust colours accordingly
(would be nice to have a “convert to black” button, or even better,
default black background).
Could have:
folder navigation and “projects”
ability to open more than one Ruby file with tabs
autocompletion of code
I’ve tried Scite but couldn’t get the incorporated code working window
working when your code required input. I was directed to a fix which I
tried but the fix did not fix it. There’s was no option to turn the
background to black anyway, so I abandoned it.
I tried FreeRIDE. Had the option to turn the background to black, but no
black background convert button. Had multifile open tabs. Had folder
navigation and projects capabilities. Had a code working window, but I
couldn’t get this one working either. Went to their website and there
was mention of problems in windows - supposed to work fine in Linux
though. I liked FreeRIDE but one of my top 3 requirements was broke so
I’ve put it aside.
Looked at vim and emacs through some nice screencasts. A little too
complicated for my purpose at this early stage of my Ruby career. I can
see myself ending up using either of these eventually though.
Found Arachno and Ruby in Steel, but alas I don’t own Visual Basic and
won’t be buying it just to run Ruby code.
What’s left? Any simple text editor for Ruby that meets my 3 must have
requirements?
What’s left? Any simple text editor for Ruby that meets my 3 must have
requirements?
While not a text editor, I’d recommend eclipse. It’s default scheme
is blank on white, but you can configure it. If you download
RadRails, it’ll come with everything you need to do Ruby projects as
well. It lacks auto completion, but has everything else you’re
looking for. It even handles subversion and unit testing, which
you’ll probably get into once your projects grow a little larger.
-Mat
Can you both confirm (ie used yourself) that RDE and Eclipse can execute
Ruby code from within the program if on WinXP SP2? FreeRIDE and Scite
claimed they could and they both couldn’t, or I couldn’t get them
working anyway.
They look good to me. The first one I try that has my top 3 I’m using.
Can you both confirm (ie used yourself) that RDE and Eclipse can execute
Ruby code from within the program if on WinXP SP2? FreeRIDE and Scite
claimed they could and they both couldn’t, or I couldn’t get them
working anyway.
They look good to me. The first one I try that has my top 3 I’m using.
Can you both confirm (ie used yourself) that RDE and Eclipse can execute
Ruby code from within the program if on WinXP SP2? FreeRIDE and Scite
claimed they could and they both couldn’t, or I couldn’t get them
working anyway.
They look good to me. The first one I try that has my top 3 I’m using.
Eclipse with RDT can indeed execute code as long as you point it at the
interpreter. However, there is a weird syncing issue with I/O display
that you have to fix. It’s one line of code and explained on the RDT
website.
Eclipse is nice. It is LARGE. It offers the option of multiple
languages and infinite configuration. It is a JAVA application. All of
these are great if you want/need them. If you don’t they can be a PITA.
RDT is nice. It is small. Not sure if it does langs other than ruby.
I’m pretty much 99% VIM. I’ve used and will prob continue to use RDE
and Eclipse for various purposes at various times ( at various times I
want/need various capabilities ). If you’re currently just interested
in RUBY and want a small, quick IDE, I suggest giving RDE a run.
Screenshots of both ides are at their respective sites.
times I want/need various capabilities ). If you’re currently just
interested in RUBY and want a small, quick IDE, I suggest giving RDE a
run.
Screenshots of both ides are at their respective sites.
I’m pretty impressed with KDevelop on the Linux platform. I don’t know
any reason why it couldn’t be made to work on a Mac, but I don’t know
about Windows. A couple of years ago I saw a (ghastly slow and unusable)
port of KDE to Cygwin, so I suppose it’s possible to run KDevelop
under Cygwin.
What’s left? Any simple text editor for Ruby that meets my 3 must have
requirements?
Well, I have only been coding Ruby a short time now and I use Komodo
from
Active State. It supports Ruby as well as PHP, Python, Perl, and
Tcl/Tk.
So far have been quite pleased so far with it.
You said “for beginner”, so I guess Vim is out. I like Textpad ( www.textpad.com) (it’s shareware.) There are Ruby syntax definition
files
available, and you can set up Tools so you can do a CTRL-1 and run the
program your editing in a separate tab. It’s got everything you asked
for (I
think) except autocompletion and I don’t think the output window lets
you
input, but that could be easy to work around.
While not a text editor, I’d recommend eclipse. It’s default scheme
is blank on white, but you can configure it. If you download
RadRails, it’ll come with everything you need to do Ruby projects as
well.
There’s a nice TextMate-style theme for RadRails if you like the colors: http://drnicwilliams.com/2006/08/08/textmate-theme-for-radrails/
It lacks auto completion, but has everything else you’re looking for.
What do you mean by “auto completion”? Defining templates and using
Ctrl+Space works fine. So you could type
de<Ctrl+Space>method_name
and end up with
def method_name
end
Completion for variable names etc. is supposed to work, too but somehow
it hasn’t worked for me so far (maybe I’ll need to upgrade to a newer
version…).
It even handles subversion and unit testing, which you’ll probably get
into once your projects grow a little larger.
I second that. The subversion integration is quite good and it’s nice to
see the green unit test bar and the Ctrl+F11 shortcut makes it easy to
repeatedly run tests.
I’ve tried RDE but once again run code window doesn’t work. This is the
program that is breaking all the editors:
puts ‘LEAP YEAR CALCULATOR’
puts ‘Enter the start year’
startyear = gets.chomp.to_i
puts ’ ’
puts ‘Enter the end year’
endyear = gets.chomp.to_i
puts ’ ’
puts ‘The leap years between the years you have entered are:’
while startyear <= endyear
if startyear%4 == 0 and startyear%100 != 0 or startyear%400 == 0 #using modulus method %, which returns the remainder when the first
number is divided by the second #using the == sign (is this equal), which is different from the = sign
(which is an assigning one to the other)
puts startyear
end
startyear = startyear + 1
end
This short program requires you to enter two years and then it outputs
all the leapyears between them. After hitting F5 in RDE for the above
code I get:
1985
2006
LEAP YEAR CALCULATOR
Enter the start year
Enter the end year
The leap years between the years you have entered are:
1988
1992
1996
2000
2004
The dates are entered before the puts statements? The prompt in the code
working pane immediately after hitting F5 is [EOF], not LEAP YEAR
CALCULATOR Enter the start year? Dunno what [EOF] means?
It’s more than likely I’m doing something wrong here but straight out of
the box RDE does not execute gets and puts correctly, or at least not in
the right order.
Can anyone test the above code and tell me it works in their Ruby editor
as it would from the dos prompt with c:\ruby program.rb?
RDE looks similar to FreeRIDE. Has all the same stuff and the same
shortfalls. Both programs do not allow you to change all the panes to a
black background, not just the code edit window. If this is the case it
defeats the purpose of having a black background because a half white
half black screen is more annoying than an all white screen. The purpose
of a black screen is to ease the glare on the eyes. RDE does not have an
“convert to black background” button, but neither has any editor I’ve
come across so far.
I’m more than happy to be corrected on any of these points - I am a
newbie. In fact I want to be corrected becuase if I’m wrong I’ve found
my editor.
Looked at vim and emacs through some nice screencasts. A little too
complicated for my purpose at this early stage of my Ruby career. I can
see myself ending up using either of these eventually though.
Have a look at VimMate before going to Vim. It’s just a wrapper around
Vim that provides a nice console and file management GUI. Plain, simple,
works for me
What’s left? Any simple text editor for Ruby that meets my 3 must have
requirements?
Eclipse with RDT can indeed execute code as long as you point it at the
interpreter. However, there is a weird syncing issue with I/O display
that you have to fix. It’s one line of code and explained on the RDT
website.
This is similar to what I had to do to get Scite’s program running pane
working. One line of code into the Ruby configuration file. I did that
for that program and it didn’t work for me.
My logic is that if I have to configure these simple Ruby editors then I
might as well just bite the bullet and learn vim or emacs. I’m starting
to think this is what I’m going to have to do to get everything exactly
as I want it, it’s just I have my doubts I will be able to with my
limited Ruby knowledge. Don’t you need to know Ruby syntax and some of
the ins and outs of setting up the Ruby interpreter to use those
editors?
On second thoughts, stuff it, I’ll configure anything on any program. I
just want my top 3 requirements any way I can get them.
Eclipse with RDT can indeed execute code as long as you point it at the
interpreter. However, there is a weird syncing issue with I/O display
that you have to fix. It’s one line of code and explained on the RDT
website.
This is similar to what I had to do to get Scite’s program running pane
working. One line of code into the Ruby configuration file. I did that
for that program and it didn’t work for me.
The console used by most of these editors (except VimMate, which embeds
gnome-terminal) is not a true terminal emulator. So you were having
problems because your script’s output was being buffered, perhaps
excessively, by the text editor’s console.
When I add the following line to the top of your program, it works fine
in the text editor’s console.
STDOUT.sync = true # disable output buffering
Also, might I recommend that you consistently indent your code to
indicate logical structure (i.e. stuff within the if & while statements
should appear “within” them).
Here is a screen shot of the fixed version of your program in jEdit:
My theory is that newbies ask for an IDE because they don’t understand
irb.
If you’re a newbie and you want an IDE, my advice is to give it up
entirely and instead learn irb.
You can get syntax coloring in irb with Wirble, and if you’re using
Rails, which many many newbies are, script/console is a Rails extended
version of irb, which is very very good.
The console used by most of these editors (except VimMate, which embeds
gnome-terminal) is not a true terminal emulator. So you were having
problems because your script’s output was being buffered, perhaps
excessively, by the text editor’s console.
When I add the following line to the top of your program, it works fine
in the text editor’s console.
STDOUT.sync = true # disable output buffering
Okay, thx. I added that line and it worked fine, so there’s nothing
wrong with RDE. Also worked for Scite. Didn’t work for FreeRIDE tho. So
far I’ve found that that was the only program that was having problems,
it just happened to be the first one I tried.
I’ll stick with RDE for now - no more time, just want to get on with it.
I’m running through some tutorials and its a lot faster in RDE than
using IRB from the DOS console and a standard text editor. If I want the
perfect editor I guess I’ll just have to learn to program my own.
My theory is that newbies ask for an IDE because they don’t understand
irb.
I’m willing to bet that most of them don’t understand how to effectively
use a REPL loop, and that’s fine if you look at it from their
perspective.
Some people really, really don’t like the idea of coding interactively.
They want to see their whole program as a file. This gives them the
assurance that what is before them is exactly what will be in memory,
with no lingering garbage from previously executed commands.
There is also the familiarity aspects. People coming from a non-REPL
background often look at it and ask, “Ok, now how do I save my program?”
or “Do I really have to retype my last 30 lines to fix that little bug
in method foo?”. Having cut my teeth on GW-BASIC, I personally see it as
a step backwards.
Why? Because with BASIC I could at least decide if the statements I
entered would be run immediately or saved for latter. This was done by
optionally prefixing them with line numbers. With line numbers, I can
easily list everything I have already entered and go back and edit
lines. I can even write the beginning and end of a block before I filled
in the details.
For many people, there is no way to convince them that REPL systems like
irb is anything more than a toy. You make think its great, but these
people are not going to listen to you. If you try to force them, then
they will just assume Ruby is a toy as well. They will think, “Ruby must
be a toy, is doesn’t even have a decent IDE.”
So let them have their IDE. Once they have time to play with the
language, the ones who want to learn REPL will pick irb. And the ones
that are unwilling to learn it will be perfectly happy using Ruby
without it.
