Use of Editors(like Radrails,Netbeans) in ROR?

Rails
21

IDEs are often bloated and difficult to use compared to editors. For
developing with technologies like J2EE, you need the extra power and
features to make your life easier. For developing with technologies
like Rails, the extra features just get in the way and slow things down.

Yes, sometimes I have found IDEs bloated and slow as a consequence.
I’ll have to check out some editors and see. Thanks Marnen.

22

pepe wrote in post #949706:

You said you like IDEs because of global search and replace
capabilities; you seemed to be implying that other editors couldn’t do
that.

To seem to an to actually do are different things.

But you yourself have just admitted that you don’t know much about text
editors, so how can you effectively draw comparisons between them and
IDEs?

I still fail to see where I compared editors and IDEs although I
understand that maybe by mentioning both in the same paragraph might
have led you to believe I was if I was not very clear in my intention.

Likely what happened. In the context of the discussion as a whole, I
thought you were comparing IDEs and other editors. Apparently you
weren’t. Sorry for misunderstanding.

[…]

Still better to have a computer that helps you and saves you time than
doing the searching, etc. by hand, IMHO. Things might not be perfect
but can save you time.

And you don’t need an IDE for that.

Of course not, the same way that I don’t need an airplane to go from
NY to LA but it just might make things a little easier. If I have a
tool that already provides the functionality (or close) that I need,
why not use it?

Because there are other tools out there providing equivalent
functionality without the disadvantages?

Anyway, by your own admission, you don’t know much about the
alternatives. Get out there and do some research! :slight_smile:

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

23

Why should those J2EE guys have all the nice toys? I want my life made
easier too!

There are reasons why IDEs for RoR haven’t all been stellar, one being
that
all that metaprogramming magic must make Rails a really slippery
framework
to build tools for, another the insane pace of change over the last year
or
two. And most importantly the problem of competing with free, and
selling
to programmers who are acclimatised to working with open source tools
(thus
the prices for software like RubyMine which in any other market would be
absurdly low).

It’s one thing to say that IDEs for Rails aren’t very good (for reasons
x, y
and z). Another to just generalise that we don’t need no stinking IDE.
That sounds dangerously close to a kind of programmers’ machismo.

Me, personally, I can’t get enough automation. Anything my machine can
do
is something I don’t have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the
100th
time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I’m looking
for
immediately. And I most especially want as much debugging help as
possible.

Mark

24

Well, firstly let’s be clear I’m not trying to sell RubyMine as my ideal
IDE. I’ve paid for it, but I’m sometimes quite equivocal about whether
it’s
much better than a terminal/editor combination. (Mind you, on the days
I’ve
needed to use the debugger I’ve been very glad to have it. But I’m only
starting out with Rails and that hasn’t happened very often yet).

But I haven’t tried all the IDE options available, and there are
features
that are standard for other languages and environments that would be
just as
valuable to Ruby/Rails. I think it’s daft to assert that Rails devs,
just
because they use Rails, can’t benefit from an IDE.

Very little of the duplicated and

generated boilerplate that IDEs are so good at maintaining is necessary
in Rails, so IDEs have no real advantage that I can think of, and in my
experience they slow everything down.

I agree about the code generation, but I’m not sure where you think IDEs
slow you down so much. A 20 - 30 second load time may not be fun but
you
only have to sit through it once a day,.

Anything my machine can

do
is something I don’t have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the
100th
time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I’m looking
for
immediately.

How does your IDE help with that?

Auto-completion and context-sensitive help and documentation; for me two
of
the most valuable tools for working with a large framework without
having to
memorise APIs

And I most especially want as much debugging help as
possible.

How does your IDE help with that?

By actually having a debugger!

Mark

25

Mark Weston wrote in post #949967:

Why should those J2EE guys have all the nice toys? I want my life made
easier too!

Your life is already being made easier by Rails.

That sounds snarky on the face of it, but really, what do you want an
IDE to do for you with Rails? Very little of the duplicated and
generated boilerplate that IDEs are so good at maintaining is necessary
in Rails, so IDEs have no real advantage that I can think of, and in my
experience they slow everything down.

I love IDEs in other contexts, but I do not think they are necessary or
desirable for Rails.

There are reasons why IDEs for RoR haven’t all been stellar, one being
that
all that metaprogramming magic must make Rails a really slippery
framework
to build tools for, another the insane pace of change over the last year
or
two.

Yup.

And most importantly the problem of competing with free, and
selling
to programmers who are acclimatised to working with open source tools
(thus
the prices for software like RubyMine which in any other market would be
absurdly low).

I started playing with RubyMine today. So far I’m unimpressed – I like
the refactoring tools, but everything else looks so much more
complicated than in any other IDE or editor – but I’ll try to find the
time to give it a fair chance.

It’s one thing to say that IDEs for Rails aren’t very good (for reasons
x, y
and z). Another to just generalise that we don’t need no stinking IDE.

Why do you want an IDE for Rails? What, specifically, do you want it to
do for you?

That sounds dangerously close to a kind of programmers’ machismo.

It’s not machismo. It’s just a recognition that Rails solves the
problems generally solved by IDEs in other (arguably better) ways: by
making the actual code simpler!

Me, personally, I can’t get enough automation.

Neither can I. But I see no point in introducing complexity where the
extra automation doesn’t actually help.

Anything my machine can
do
is something I don’t have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the
100th
time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I’m looking
for
immediately.

How does your IDE help with that?

And I most especially want as much debugging help as
possible.

How does your IDE help with that?

Mark

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

26

Mark Weston wrote in post #950097:

Well, firstly let’s be clear I’m not trying to sell RubyMine as my ideal
IDE. I’ve paid for it, but I’m sometimes quite equivocal about whether
it’s
much better than a terminal/editor combination.

Exactly.

(Mind you, on the days
I’ve
needed to use the debugger I’ve been very glad to have it. But I’m only
starting out with Rails and that hasn’t happened very often yet).

If you’re only starting out with Rails, I wonder if you’re fully aware
of the available options. Have you used the command-line debugger?

But I haven’t tried all the IDE options available, and there are
features
that are standard for other languages and environments that would be
just as
valuable to Ruby/Rails.

Such as?

I think it’s daft to assert that Rails devs,
just
because they use Rails, can’t benefit from an IDE.

What’s daft about that? The nature of Rails is such that conventional
IDE features really do it no good at all. Perhaps a different sort of
IDE would be helpful, but (with the possible exception of RubyMine) I’m
not sure such a thing exists yet.

Very little of the duplicated and

generated boilerplate that IDEs are so good at maintaining is necessary
in Rails, so IDEs have no real advantage that I can think of, and in my
experience they slow everything down.

I agree about the code generation, but I’m not sure where you think IDEs
slow you down so much. A 20 - 30 second load time may not be fun but
you
only have to sit through it once a day,.

True, but big IDEs (being more complex programs) are generally slower
than simpler editors. In my experience, they also make common Rails
shell tasks harder, not easier.

Anything my machine can

do
is something I don’t have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the
100th
time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I’m looking
for
immediately.

How does your IDE help with that?

Auto-completion and context-sensitive help and documentation;

You don’t need an IDE for that. KomodoEdit and jEdit do this too.

for me two
of
the most valuable tools for working with a large framework without
having to
memorise APIs

But you should be memorizing the API. (To be fair, I’m constantly
checking docs as I develop – usually in my Web browser. I’ve yet to
see in-editor documentation that’s as convenient to use.)

And I most especially want as much debugging help as
possible.

How does your IDE help with that?

By actually having a debugger!

I have a debugger too, without an IDE. Do you even know about
ruby-debug, or are you just stuck in a knee-jerk IDE mentality?

Mark

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]