IDEs are often bloated and difficult to use compared to editors. For developing with technologies like J2EE, you need the extra power and features to make your life easier. For developing with technologies like Rails, the extra features just get in the way and slow things down.
Yes, sometimes I have found IDEs bloated and slow as a consequence. I'll have to check out some editors and see. Thanks Marnen.
Why should those J2EE guys have all the nice toys? I want my life made easier too!
There are reasons why IDEs for RoR haven’t all been stellar, one being that all that metaprogramming magic must make Rails a really slippery framework to build tools for, another the insane pace of change over the last year or two. And most importantly the problem of competing with free, and selling to programmers who are acclimatised to working with open source tools (thus the prices for software like RubyMine which in any other market would be absurdly low).
It’s one thing to say that IDEs for Rails aren’t very good (for reasons x, y and z). Another to just generalise that we don’t need no stinking IDE. That sounds dangerously close to a kind of programmers’ machismo.
Me, personally, I can’t get enough automation. Anything my machine can do is something I don’t have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the 100th time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I’m looking for immediately. And I most especially want as much debugging help as possible.
Mark
Mark Weston wrote in post #949967:
Why should those J2EE guys have all the nice toys? I want my life made easier too!
Your life is already being made easier by Rails.
That sounds snarky on the face of it, but really, what do you want an IDE to do for you with Rails? Very little of the duplicated and generated boilerplate that IDEs are so good at maintaining is necessary in Rails, so IDEs have no real advantage that I can think of, and in my experience they slow everything down.
I love IDEs in other contexts, but I do not think they are necessary or desirable for Rails.
There are reasons why IDEs for RoR haven't all been stellar, one being that all that metaprogramming magic must make Rails a really slippery framework to build tools for, another the insane pace of change over the last year or two.
Yup.
And most importantly the problem of competing with free, and selling to programmers who are acclimatised to working with open source tools (thus the prices for software like RubyMine which in any other market would be absurdly low).
I started playing with RubyMine today. So far I'm unimpressed -- I like the refactoring tools, but everything else looks so much more complicated than in any other IDE or editor -- but I'll try to find the time to give it a fair chance.
It's one thing to say that IDEs for Rails aren't very good (for reasons x, y and z). Another to just generalise that we don't need no stinking IDE.
Why do you want an IDE for Rails? What, specifically, do you want it to do for you?
That sounds dangerously close to a kind of programmers' machismo.
It's not machismo. It's just a recognition that Rails solves the problems generally solved by IDEs in other (arguably better) ways: by making the actual code simpler!
Me, personally, I can't get enough automation.
Neither can I. But I see no point in introducing complexity where the extra automation doesn't actually help.
Anything my machine can do is something I don't have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the 100th time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I'm looking for immediately.
How does your IDE help with that?
And I most especially want as much debugging help as possible.
How does your IDE help with that?
Mark
Best,
Well, firstly let’s be clear I’m not trying to sell RubyMine as my ideal IDE. I’ve paid for it, but I’m sometimes quite equivocal about whether it’s much better than a terminal/editor combination. (Mind you, on the days I’ve needed to use the debugger I’ve been very glad to have it. But I’m only starting out with Rails and that hasn’t happened very often yet).
But I haven’t tried all the IDE options available, and there are features that are standard for other languages and environments that would be just as valuable to Ruby/Rails. I think it’s daft to assert that Rails devs, just because they use Rails, can’t benefit from an IDE.
Very little of the duplicated and
generated boilerplate that IDEs are so good at maintaining is necessary
in Rails, so IDEs have no real advantage that I can think of, and in my
experience they slow everything down.
I agree about the code generation, but I’m not sure where you think IDEs slow you down so much. A 20 - 30 second load time may not be fun but you only have to sit through it once a day,.
Anything my machine can
do
is something I don’t have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the
100th
time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I’m looking
for
immediately.
How does your IDE help with that?
Auto-completion and context-sensitive help and documentation; for me two of the most valuable tools for working with a large framework without having to memorise APIs
And I most especially want as much debugging help as
possible.
How does your IDE help with that?
By actually having a debugger!
Mark
Mark Weston wrote in post #950097:
Well, firstly let's be clear I'm not trying to sell RubyMine as my ideal IDE. I've paid for it, but I'm sometimes quite equivocal about whether it's much better than a terminal/editor combination.
Exactly.
(Mind you, on the days I've needed to use the debugger I've been very glad to have it. But I'm only starting out with Rails and that hasn't happened very often yet).
If you're only starting out with Rails, I wonder if you're fully aware of the available options. Have you used the command-line debugger?
But I haven't tried all the IDE options available, and there are features that are standard for other languages and environments that would be just as valuable to Ruby/Rails.
Such as?
I think it's daft to assert that Rails devs, just because they use Rails, can't benefit from an IDE.
What's daft about that? The nature of Rails is such that conventional IDE features really do it no good at all. Perhaps a different sort of IDE would be helpful, but (with the possible exception of RubyMine) I'm not sure such a thing exists yet.
Very little of the duplicated and
generated boilerplate that IDEs are so good at maintaining is necessary in Rails, so IDEs have no real advantage that I can think of, and in my experience they slow everything down.
I agree about the code generation, but I'm not sure where you think IDEs slow you down so much. A 20 - 30 second load time may not be fun but you only have to sit through it once a day,.
True, but big IDEs (being more complex programs) are generally slower than simpler editors. In my experience, they also make common Rails shell tasks harder, not easier.
Anything my machine can
> do > is something I don't have to. Scrolling through an RDoc page for the > 100th > time is a waste of my time if my IDE can remind me of what I'm looking > for > immediately.
How does your IDE help with that?
Auto-completion and context-sensitive help and documentation;
You don't need an IDE for that. KomodoEdit and jEdit do this too.
for me two of the most valuable tools for working with a large framework without having to memorise APIs
But you *should* be memorizing the API. (To be fair, I'm constantly checking docs as I develop -- usually in my Web browser. I've yet to see in-editor documentation that's as convenient to use.)
> And I most especially want as much debugging help as > possible.
How does your IDE help with that?
By actually having a debugger!
I have a debugger too, without an IDE. Do you even know about ruby-debug, or are you just stuck in a knee-jerk IDE mentality?
Mark
Best,