Tuesday, September 11, 2007

(Not So) Rad Rails


I hate to be disparaging about any product or technology... But, dang it! Why can't someone make a decent Ruby on Rails Integrated Development Environment (IDE)?

I love rails... I really like the "convention over configuration" and ruthless ethos of simplicity that surround the community. Pack light, move fast... be lazy (do only what you have to, and do it quickly so you can get on with life). My favorite agile software development "continuous integration" tool (CruiseControl.rb) is written on the Rails framework. The non-profit website I'm webmaster for (UtahFEAT.org) is on Rails. The scaffolding CRUD generators get you up and running quickly.

I recently tried the RadRails IDE, thinking that it would be the "bees knees"... but honestly, not being an Eclipse fan or user... I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't tell it had any Ruby support at all. I've even used the RDT plugin (which was okay) to greater effect. All I could see was what looked like a JavaScript IDE. The FreeRIDE IDE isn't too bad, either... but has no specific Rails support.

What the world needs now... is a Rails IDE that knows rhtml, knows the Ruby libraries, knows how to generate scaffolding. But most of all, can I please just get up and running quickly with a new project that I can build and deploy in approximately the same amount of time it takes me to do it with the command line, gvim, and FTP?

Perhaps to a greater degree than all web development tools to date, Rails is about speeding up development. Doesn't it deserve an IDE that remains true to this goal? {end rant}

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