Ruby IDE RubyMine 2.0 Beta Released
RubyMine is a Ruby and Rails IDE (for Windows, OS X, and Linux) by JetBrains, the guys behind the popular Java IDE IntelliJ IDEA. We've previously posted about how much people seem to like RubyMine, and it looks like things will get even better, as they've just released the beta of RubyMine 2.0. Notably, RubyMine 2.0 will be free to existing 1.0 users as it falls within the year allowed for free updates!
The New Stuff
RubyMine 2.0 was initially meant to only be RubyMine 1.5 but Eugene Toporov of JetBrains told me that they've considered 2.0 to be more appropriate given the number of updates and additions. Updates include:
- Ruby 1.9 support
- Rails 2.3.3 support
- Rails i18n (internationalization) support and spell checker
- UI improvements
- Cucumber and Shoulda support (in addition to the existing, and now improved, RSpec support)
- Built-in HAML and Sass support
JetBrains' RubyMine 2.0 beta overview page gives full examples of the changes and improvements.
20% Discount Until General Availability
JetBrains are offering a 20% discount on purchases of RubyMine from now until the general release of 2.0 - due sometime in the next few weeks, so this is a great time to try it out and, if you like it, buy a copy. The offer price is currently $79 to US users or £57 in the UK. Not bad considering the parent product, IntelliJ IDEA, weighs in at hundreds of dollars!
Still A Bit Flaky To Me, But A Strong Step Forward
I'm not typically into IDEs and find the lack of a truly native OS X Ruby IDE a little jarring. RubyMine 2.0 does seem to have a somewhat improved interface, though, but I still find it flaky. For example, when you press backspace when filling out fields in the preferences dialogs, it doesn't work, and instead you see characters being deleted from your open code in the background! When filling out other dialog boxes, when I pressed Enter it added lines into my code in the background too rather than close the dialog.
RubyMine isn't a native OS X app from what I can tell (you can reskin it from the preferences pane!) and dialog and UI behavior is not really up to OS X standard in much of the app. Despite reservations about using it myself, though, other users on Twitter are raving about how good it is so it's certainly worth a try. It's certainly improved enough that I'm going to give it a proper try this time.
Disclosure: JetBrains, creator of RubyMine, is a sponsor of Ruby Inside. This post is, however, not contingent on that and I have no other relationship with the company (and, sadly, don't get a cut of any sales - ha!).
September 30, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Just out of curiousity, what's wrong with NetBeans? I've always found it's Ruby support to be excellent, far better than Textmate.
See http://wiki.netbeans.org/RubyEditing
September 30, 2009 at 11:21 pm
One of the best things about Rubymine is integrated debugging that's really, really easy to use. I've been using 1.1 for about six months now, and looking forward to trying 2.0 when it exits beta.
October 1, 2009 at 9:35 am
I've been using RM under Ubuntu 9.04 for about six months now. Works like a charm... only downside is that I hate working with any other IDE.
October 1, 2009 at 5:37 pm
it feels very old fashioned and looks too much like a windows app. it is decent for debugging.
October 1, 2009 at 7:14 pm
RubyMine is decent for debugging. It does have a tendency to leave a port open in which case I either need to reboot or choose a different port.
October 2, 2009 at 9:05 am
I think rubymine is the best ruby IDE i've used so far, and I've tried them all. It keeps out of your way like tm, but its powerful for when you need it (like bringing up the docs inline). Plus it has proper haml integration, something I've felt has been lacking with other editors.
Like all IDEs it has it's problems, but they seem pretty good at replying on the forums and the development and improvements have been constant since the first release.
October 12, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I agree with @dick. I've never used RubyMine before but NetBeans seems to be the best i've come across so far.
October 15, 2009 at 4:51 pm
NetBeans is so so. Nice DB console with autocomplete, good basic editing once you turn off the autocomplete nonsense. What it lacks is proper HAML support. The plugin is only marginal and get's thrown by some characters into underlining the entire file in red. blech!
October 20, 2009 at 1:58 am
Nearing 2.0, you'd think they'd have a proper tutorial showing off how they envisioned the application to be used.
It looks like there are many great features, if you can experimentally figure out where they are and how to use them.
October 20, 2009 at 2:04 pm
There is also inline debugger support in arcadia IDE
http://github.com/angal/arcadia