David Schwartz wrote:
I'm a newbie and I'd like the support that an IDE provides. Searching around the web reveals a number of options and I was wondering whether there were one or two that stood out above the others?
TIA, David
Netbeans (even if it eats too much RAM)
another vote from me for
mac: textmate + terminal (we use this at work)
NetBeans if you want more features (or use Win or Linux)
RadRails or Aptana are another good option I think. I started with this a year ago and it was good enough)
under Linux there is KDevelop, which comes with some syntax highlighting and a few more options for RoR. But I never used it myself for any serious project, so I don't know...
I usually work on my application from three different places... at work, on a win box, I use ol'good Notepad++, tortoisesvn and cmd.exe. At home, both on laptop and desktop (Kubuntu/Win boxes) I have Aptana with Subclipse installed. I think it's just a matter of adapting yourself to the circumstances
It may have changed since I used it (which was a while back, although
other colleagues have used it until quite recently) but aptana/
radrails just used to spaz out every now and again and spend 2 minutes
'rebuilding the workspace' whatever that means, sometimes opening a
file would randomly take 30 seconds and things like that. Was ok when
it actually worked though (but I like TextMate a lot more), and
subclipse is very nice.
Fred
Yea, Aptana still has those "rebuilding" moments last time I used it where it just takes a break and has you sitting there frustrated. The Git bundle for textmate is actually pretty amazing. I barely miss subclipse with the Git bundle in textmate + Gitnub.
On Windows, NetBean IDE 6.1 is working well. Very rich set of features. While developing, allows me to focus on the code and not have to deal so much with enviroment.
Jim
In my particular setup I work directly on a linux development server. Although, I've used the same setup when working locally.
Vim + Screen = The best setup I have ever had.
I've used lots of IDE's from Visual Studio to Eclipse to Netbeans. I've also used enhanced text editors like Jedit, TextPad, and UltraEdit. They are pretty good, but I found that I've developed faster using console based apps.
If you do plan to use vim, I would highly recommend memorizing and learning as many shortcuts as you can. The shortcuts are what really make vim and screen shine.
The best thing about screen is if you close your ssh connection, you can open it back up again later with all your files open and programs still running. Very useful if you use switch computers often.
Regards,
Roel (PS. Mouse sucks, keyboard rocks!)
Aptana/RadRails, emacs, sed/grep for mass renaming/refactoring/ searching, and even nano here and there when I want to make quick changes. This is on Gentoo, btw.
I use Aptana because I really like it, despite the fact that it still
has that "I'm going to wait 10 seconds before opening your file for
you" problem. But I am also constantly opening files in tons of
command-line routines as well. I could get by with just command line
tools, though, without much problem. I have a very scatter-brained
(in terms of with what and where I actually do the work) approach to
development. 
However, a necessity for me is FireBug... nothing in the past year has made me a more productive coder and problem solver than that tool, and it pretty much approaches an IDE in it's complexity and power. You can pretty much develop your template's skeletons directly in the web browser, and see exactly what you will get. Not to mention that on- the-fly javascript/CSS/XHTML editing and inspection is about the only way to diagnose problems effectively in a modern heavily AJAXed and CSSed site. I don't know what I would do without it now.
I'm using Aptana on Windows I have to say that it lacks a lot - A LOT. I have two rather big controllers that whenever I go to save it freezes up for about a solid minute - minute and half, the editing envirnment often gets confused about how code should line up. Also, I closed the "Outline" side bar one day and it took me forever to find the appropriate drop down to get it re-loaded. And lastely, I think - I'm not sure - that Aptana is a memory hog.
-S
If you're starting with rails the autocomplete and documentation features from netbeans will help a LOT, showing the order of the paramteres for the view helper methods goes a loong way, also netbeans debugging is really helpful and simple.
That said, I use textmate and rarely use netbeans, netbeans is very
very solid though, and the price is right, free 
So, I notice that no one's mentioned XCode as an editor. Not up to the task?
David
Aptana Studio, but I check out netbeans every so often. Both suck up a lot of resources on your box. Btw, I used to see those freeze ups in Aptana, but I don't any more now when I think about it. We work over NFS too, so that made it even worse I think.
For fun I just started up aptana, netbeans, and TextMate and let them idle for 5 minutes.
Netbeans: 320MB Aptana: 228MB TextMate: 27MB
I've seen netbeans at 700+ MB. That's just insane and the number one reason i don't use it much. I like it otherwise. Both of those are nice.
Currently giving textmate a trial again. With a cheat sheet for common tasks until I can remember them, I really like it. It's nice and light and might very well be what I'll use down the road once I get the hang of it. As far as calling it the official editor. I'm partial to that since it only runs on a Mac but I've seen that word circle around with it a lot.
Fredrik
I like 'e' on windows--it's a textmate clone.
Aptana Studio, but I check out netbeans every so often. Both suck up a lot of resources on your box. Btw, I used to see those freeze ups in Aptana, but I don't any more now when I think about it. We work over NFS too, so that made it even worse I think.
For fun I just started up aptana, netbeans, and TextMate and let them idle for 5 minutes.
Netbeans: 320MB
It is probably worth noting that by default NetBeans will use at maximum 1/4th of the available RAM, if that seems like too much you can always adjust it by specifying the -Xmx switch in the [netbeans installation dir]/etc/netbeans.conf file. Just add e.g. "-J-Xmx384m" to the netbeans_default_options line (that would set the max heap size to 384m). More details at http://performance.netbeans.org/howto/jvmswitches/index.html.
Cheers, Erno
I used to use radrails in eclipse, then switched to netbeans when it got the fast debugging for rails (which was really good). Now though i do everything in linux and don't bother with IDEs at all - i just use a simple text editor and the command line, which i think is better, as well as forcing you to have a better understanding of what you're doing.
If you're on mac, as many have said, textmate is the professional's choice.
I use Emacs on Linux to write Rails source code. Emacs is very good. You only need write code and know how do this, it's all. Althougth NetBeans is maybe a good IDE, it need more hardware(memory and micro) than Emacs. I prefer a editor how Emacs and not an IDE how NetBeans or Eclipse.
Cesar
Emacs is great, but the learning curve is too steep, you need to graduate in it before reaching a viable state of production.
1-2 days is about the worst of it. Then over the next two weeks or so you learn more of the obscure stuff. Inside of a month you realize you're over the hump and more productive than ever before. It's well worth the effort in my opinion. I even use Emacs on my Mac.
Add this:
http://dima-exe.ru/rails-on-emacs
and this:
and you've got yourself a complete Rails IDE that runs on any OS.