As I'm writing every web interface using Ruby On Rails under Linux, I needed to find a good editor to help me work on the Rails apps (normally I used TextMate under MacOS X, but know I have a Linux box at work). I come from the VIM school and I really never be interested in IDE (Integreted Development Environment) as I prefered something simpler and faster to edit my programs and files. Also normally, I work on servers and clusters via SSH connection, so a shell editor like VIM was perfect for every situation. But VIM can be very unpleasant when you need to work on several files, moving within directories as normally every Rails user need to do....
So, basically I needed two things:
1) Some graphical cool application to work with Rails under Linux
2) As I have all the web sites on a remote server, something to "mount" remote directories as local mount point on a Linux box
For the point 2, I found out SSHFS, part of the FUSE project. As the name indicates, it is based on SSH protocol, so every data you exchange between your computer and the server, will be encrypted. Using this utility and adding the FUSE support to the linux kernel of my Linux box (just modprobing....) I was able to mount remote directories from the server, as local mount point. So after this, I just needed a good graphical editor to edit my files!
For point 1, I tested different IDE and editors and I report here just the few that hit my attention (all are open-source and free):
- Kate: part of the KDE environment, but usable also under Gnome (my default DE); is a very good editor and includes also the Linux Terminal in the same window (very useful).
- Anjuta Editor: this is designed for Gnome and is a complete IDE. It includes the Linux Terminal and some interesting features via installable plugins, but seemed not so customizable.
- NetBeans: the famous Java IDE. Complete and very very well designed.
In the end I prefered NetBeans for many different reasons: the Ruby/ Rails version is just around 22 Mb of download and has full support for the autocompletion of functions and commands, including also all the Ruby and Rails API documentation. It also have support for Version Control Systems, like CVS and Subversion (the one I currently use) and you can manage direct connections with every Database system, using JDBC. It also has a very good windows design, to manage and control all the aspects of a single project.
Defenetively, in my opinion, the best choice under linux for a complete and professional Ruby / Rails IDE.
Enjoy
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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8 comments:
Did you give Aptana Studio a go? I would love to read about a comparison between NetBeans and Aptana.
I use the netbeans IDE under windows.It provides cool features like code assist and other faster editing features that ide like aptana do not provide.But the Onlr issue with the netbeans is that it tenda to decrease the sys performance where aptana works under a stable set of resources
Aptana IDE is not as good as Netbeans, and Aptana company is focusing on their Jaxer JavaScript server, rahter than RoR.
@Raghavendra Kamat: I know that 500MB RAM usage from Netbeans is not nice... but I system performance? Are you encoding a video stream at the same time as you code? It's not my statement: "A developers machine is no longer possible without 2GB or RAM"
Did you take a look at Geany?
http://geany.uvena.de/Main/HomePage
I think Geany is overlooked way too much as an Ubuntu TextMate alternative. Features include Ruby syntax highlighting, code folding, “Find In Files” function to search globally for keywords, a SVN / Git integration plugin, ability to jump directly to method definitions via right-clicking, and TextMate like snippets. It also has an integrated linux shell, integrated file browser, and you can run individual tests with a by clicking F5 while on a test page.
It has been my editor of choice after using Gedit (not enough functionality) and NetBeans (too heavy running on Java) for a while.
You might like to try the vim plugins for netbeans. They're weird: e.g., I can't save by using ":w" for example, but I still like the visual commands, which work pretty well.
Here are my
del.icio.us tags about the plugin.
-- ge
I just ditched NetBeans for e, which works like TextMate -- not sure if it works for your OS, though.
NetBeans is also my choice. And, yeah, I'm on Linux too (Ubuntu). :)
Netbeans is surely great IDE and it has many good things, but for Ruby development I prefer Gedit.. you can get it working almost as TextMate...
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