Anything but Aptana

Rubymine (RubyMine: The Ruby on Rails IDE by JetBrains) would have been the best money ever spent for Windows, but I got it via a free coupon.

My personal favorite is emacs with emacs-rails package. Well worth a look if you want a development environment that you can carry with you through time and computer changes. For example, I started using emacs as a C development platform on VMS in 1979 (DEC Vax - prehistory) and have used it under unix, windows, and osx to develop code in many different languages.

Check out this site to get started: http://dima-exe.ru/rails-on-emacs

I've also tried Vim, NetBeans, jEdit, and ScITE but emacs remains my editor of choice.

Risky religious rant here...

On a slightly different note, I think you ought to take a look at one of the many linux variants (or osx if you're shopping for a new computer). While it is true that Microsoft has desktop dominance this is due more to clever marketing and a historic middle management mantra (Nobody ever got fired for purchasing IBM) than to technical innovation or excellence.

I'm gonna throw another +1 on Emacs.

Emacs has an extremely high learning curve, but is oh so worth it. As someone else said, you'll love NOT having to use your mouse for anything.

But to actually answer your question, on Windows, InType (http:// intype.info/) would suit you very well. It's almost a complete TextMate clone.

+1 for RubyMine....worth way more than the $50 I spent on it.

If you are interested in using emacs with Rails and Ruby, it's probably worth looking at Rinari, too:

http://rinari.rubyforge.org/

Also, check out the various emacs-starter-kits and dotfiles on github:

http://github.com/search?q=emacs-starter-kits&type=Everything&repo=&langOverride=&start_value=1

http://github.com/search?type=Everything&language=&q=emacs+dotfile&repo=&langOverride=&x=0&y=0&start_value=1

I have my own, but it is Aquamacs (read OSX) specific:

http://github.com/walter/aquamacs-emacs-starter-kit/tree

Cheers, Walter

RVince wrote:

Not trying to get into a "What's a good IDE" here, BUT....On Windows....RadRails never cut it. Under Aptana, it's a terrible joke, and I'm sick of losing so much time waiting not only for this thing to initialize, but the hanging and crashing I go through is killing me.

Please, someone....point me to a decent, lightweight IDE. All i want is syntax coloring. I'm thinking notepad++ here. Anyone have a better solutions? Thanks. RVince

You don't need an IDE for Rails, just a good editor. I highly recommend KomodoEdit. (I love Emacs in console environments, but I prefer graphical editors when a GUI is available. Oddly enough, I hate xemacs.)

I also highly recommend not using Windows.

Best,

Go e texteditor - Textmate for windows http://www.e-texteditor.com/