We're adding Rails development features to the Steel IDE

Rails
1

…and we need your feedback!

As some of you may know, we have recently released the first public beta
of a Ruby IDE called ‘Steel’ for Visual Studio. Beta 0.5 has colour
coding, code collapsing and various editing features (bracket matching,
commenting, syntax error location etc.) plus a docked interactive
console.

At the end of this month we will release v 0.6 which has debugging
(breakpoints, watch variables, locals, autos, call stack, an interactive
debug window etc.)

The next relaese after that (0.7) adds dedicated Rails support. We are
already working on some features (such as Rails-specific colour coding
and project management) but we would value as much input - i.e. ideas
and feature requests - as possible from Rails users. You can leave
comments or contact us direct from the site.

http://www.sapphiresteel.com

best wishes
Huw C.

2

That’s pretty cool Huw. I can’t wait to see how you are going to
support Rails within it. Is this going to be a commercial product in
its release version and if so what will be the cost?

-bakki

3

Bakki K. wrote:

That’s pretty cool Huw. I can’t wait to see how you are going to
support Rails within it.

Thanks for the comments :slight_smile:

As for Rails support, the more ideas and feature requests we get from
people the better the support will be!

Is this going to be a commercial product in
its release version and if so what will be the cost?

We shall release two versions. The standard version will always be free.
There will also be a commercial ‘Pro’ version with a few extra goodies
and we’ll announce the features and price of this nearer the release
date (the end of this year).

best wishes
Huw

4

Hi Huw –

First, I want to say Thank You for developing Ruby/Ruby on Rails IDE
support, and BIG Thank You for not pushing debugging to the bottom of
the
feature list. I posted a few feature requests and suggestions on your
site,
but I’ll be more specific here, with the caveat that I don’t have Visual
Studio and thus have not taken your tool for a test drive.

The IDE Feature Request Short List:

  • Everything from Eclipse’s Java IDE
  • Everything from Intellij IDEA

And if that’s a bit more than you can bite off in a weekend:

  • Debugging with minimal performance degradation. The default
    debugger in for ruby is very slow when debugging Rails, especially at
    start
    up.
  • Refactoring: At least the low-hanging fruit, such as Rename Method,
    Extract Method, Move Method, etc.
  • GUI interface to running Test::Unit, which is something that RDT
    does well, following the same UI “standard” as the JUnit UI
    (green-bar,
    red-bar, test hierarchy, etc.)
  • Code assist for variables, methods, arguments, etc.
  • Code assist for Rails constructs, such as associations (:has_many,
    etc), :attr_accessor, assert_, render…
  • Code assist templates for plugins, such as :acts_as_taggable
  • Integrated weBrick launching, debugging

– Joe

5

The big question is… does windows need another ruby/rails editor/IDE?

especialy on based on Ms Visual Studio.

I really can’t understand why there’s only one REAL Rails IDE for Linux.

6

Thanks for the comments. As we explain in more detail on our site, we
aim to provide for Ruby all the development features you would expect
from Visual Studio. However, these features will be released gradually.
It’s very tempting to rush out dozens of new things all in one big
release. However, we have decided that, at the outset, it is more
important to have a small range of features that work well rather than a
larger range of features that don’t :slight_smile:

The debugging provided in the forthcoming release (0.6) will not be
super fast as this is, essentially, a Visual Studio implementation of
Ruby’s own debugging. There will be a faster (hopefully, a much
faster) debugger released at a later date. This will be implemented in a
completely different way from the standard Ruby debugger for speed. So
while the current debugger is reasonably well-featured the ‘turbo’
version won’t be along for some months yet…

best wishes
Huw

7

Is there another one out there that is based on MS Visual Studio?
If so, I would love to get my hands on it!

The more IDE’s the better, as it is right now, none of them really stand
out as being great.

Also, most of them work off of the Linux “theme”…download this,
compile that, configure this file, will only work with X.X.X version,
find this plugin,…

If someone would create an IDE that has all of the cool/needed features,
without all of the headaches and a 1 button install, I would be willing
to pay some serious cash for it.

So if this MSVS plugin installs like most Windows applications and has
the cool/needed features, I’ll be first in line with my Credit Card.

Keep on developing!!!

Rafael Z. wrote:

The big question is… does windows need another ruby/rails editor/IDE?

especialy on based on Ms Visual Studio.

I really can’t understand why there’s only one REAL Rails IDE for Linux.

8

Rafael, we have no desire to criticise Linux or the Linux development
community. Some people are already developing Ruby IDEs which run on
Linux and I wish them well.

There is, however, a very large community of developers who are using
Visual Studio and who need first rate tools for programming Ruby on
Windows. The Steel IDE is for them!

best wishes
Huw

9

My wish for future IDEs is to be able to tunnel into a Linux machine.
Right
now I don’t have Ruby installed on my Windows XP–it’s only used for
editing. All the web server and ruby stuff is in a linux VMWare virtual
machine. I know this is a rare setup.

“Huw C.” [email protected] wrote in
message news:[email protected]…

10

I never said I knew one IDE based on Visual Studio.

What I really meant was: Why you, software companies, only think in
windows
as your development plataform? Not only for IDE but for everything.

A long ago, in my college days, one “Microsoft Looney” ask me about
development plataforms in Linux… He said

  • Linux Don’t have VB, Linux don’t have Delphi or .net, Linux don’t
    have a
    strong, easy and good to develop plataform, or RAD tool.

So I answer him:

  • My friend, is VB a good and strong plataform? Delphi is a good RAD
    tool,
    but you have Delphi4Linux (the extinct Kylix), .net… well, I can’t see
    .net as a good thing… it was made by microsoft just to close even more
    their products (Well, there is Mono). If you want to see a good
    programming
    language, take a look at Ruby. And C++ is always there to anyone who
    wants
    to spend a lot of time learning.

Well, since windows users are so crazy for windows as linux users are
crazy
for linux, he don’t accepted my arguments, saying that there will never
be a
serious company that user FOSS, or Linux as a development enviroment.

Is that the point here? Software companies are like the ex Pão de Açucar
CIO, who once said “Linux, not even with a gun in my head, I can’t trust
in
a OS that is mantained by a teenager”. Or software companies just
develop
software for windows 'cause you really like windows?

No flames please, but since Linux is a better, stable and faster (and
free)
plataform, I can’t understand why so much difficulty in use it as a
development plataform… since Linux, in my opinion, is a OS made by
hackers
to hackers :smiley:

11

Rafael Z. wrote:

I never said I knew one IDE based on Visual Studio.

What I really meant was: Why you, software companies, only think in
windows
as your development plataform? Not only for IDE but for everything.

Because its a platform with consistency and its what pays my bills.

Well, since windows users are so crazy for windows as linux users are
crazy
for linux, he don’t accepted my arguments, saying that there will never
be a
serious company that user FOSS, or Linux as a development enviroment.

Is that the point here? Software companies are like the ex Pão de Açucar
CIO, who once said “Linux, not even with a gun in my head, I can’t trust
in
a OS that is mantained by a teenager”. Or software companies just
develop
software for windows 'cause you really like windows?

No flames please, but since Linux is a better, stable and faster (and
free)

It seems to me it’s the Linux zealots that’s constantly saying Linux is
better…Linux is faster…Linux is …

But Windows owns over 80% of the market.

It’s the Linux zealots that seem to have a chip on their shoulder.

Let it go…they can both co-exist.

I can’t understand why so much difficulty in use it as a
development plataform… since Linux, in my opinion, is a OS made by
hackers
to hackers :smiley:

That is the main reason I don’t use it anymore.

I don’t have the time or patients to try to figure how or why some
“crazed” developer decided to do what what they did.

In other words, because it’s an OS by hackers, there is no consistency
to the OS, to the programs you install, to how you install programs,
funky configuration files with little or no help on it’s purpose, etc…

Since Linux lovers tell Windows lovers to use cygwin when a program
doesn’t exist, I’m telling you to use VMWare and Windows…that should
solve your problem.

Good Day :slight_smile:

12

Hello Huw

I’m not criticising your tool at all, I think you have found a great
market.

Sorry for any troubles