NetBeans for Ruby is solid. Great basic editor with great Ruby on Rails integration. Of those at a recent Ruby on Rails user group meeting, 2/3 or those not on TextMate used NetBeans over RadRails.
I have been happily using RadRails (Aptana) on windows for several months and got to really like it - there was even a haml plugin available for editor highlighting.
However, it seems that AptanaStudio has had a major update which has resulted in it being mega resource hungry, (I am guessing Jaxer). On windows it was making my laptop unusable for 10s of seconds at a time at random but fairly frequent intervals. I was blaming windows, but I have switched to Radrails on Fedora and although not quite so severe, it is still too much. - Dont want to be upgrading hardware just for this - shame though.
I guess I will give Netbeans a try. Or maybe get into one of the Textmate type options for Linux.
tonypm
@tonypm -- Tha's why I switched to netbeans when 6.0 was released. It's a much, much lighter application in terms of resources but you'll not give up any functionality. The only thing that I don't particularly like is that you cannot supply parameters to rake tasks in the IDE -- you have to run them in a shell (note: ONLY if you need to supply parms... and this is slated for rework in 6.1 due out soon).
I really like the plugin/gems installer in the IDE. Much cleaner and more stable than Aptana/RadRails. I also appreciate that the look and feel for them is the same since you're doing something similar in each.
HTH, AndyV
Wow - I spent today trying different options, looking at getting Jedit, or trying to install gvim and cream, but it was just really heavy going. Anyway, I got to the point of desperation, I really need to get back to coding. So I decided to install Netbeans. I had tried it ages ago and it was a bit heavy going, but today I was - well - stunned.
It downloads as a single self installing file, it installs from a graphical interface, it tells you what it is doing, it comes bundelled with the jdk or on it's own. After installation it puts an icon on the desktop and tells you it's done it.
Really, Really well thought through - well done sun. On top of that, I installed the Rails plugin within a few seconds of starting the ide, and then created a project and tested it straight away. Excellent. I did have a couple of teething problems, but I have got past those.
On top of that, I have found an early development version of a Haml/ Sass plugin and have installed that.
I am well impressed. - Just logged in and seen your comment - so after my own experience I agree with you - and btw, it doesnt seem to go to sleep for long periods at a time like Aptana was doing. So now I'm up and running. Thanks for your post.
Tonypm
