CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2011/ch1 1a ms

CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2010/ch1 1a ms

---

Introduction

This article is trying to analyze and compare different Integrated Development Environments(IDE) that are in use for software development in Ruby. We will be comparing Aptana RadRails, Ruby Mine, Eclipse and NetBeans.

What is an IDE?

An IDE is a software application which provides comprehensive facilities to maximize computer programmers' productivity. An IDE consists of:

• A source code editor.
• A compiler and/or an interpreter.
• Build automation tools.
• A debugger.

The aim is to abstract the configuration necessary to piece together command line utilities in a cohesive unit. Most IDE's are graphical to improve interaction.

What is RUBY and its features?

RUBY is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language.

Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including:

• Functional: Computation is evaluation of a mathematical function.
• Object oriented: Data structures consisting of data fields and methods are used.
• Imperative: Computation in terms of statements that change the program stare.
• Reflective: Computer program can evaluate and modify its structure.

Additionally, it has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management.

Comparison

System requirements

General

	Eclipse	NetBeans	Aptana RadRails	RubyMine
Version	Eclipse	NetBeans 7.0.1	Aptana 2.0.5	RubyMine 3.2.3
Windows XP/Vista/7	Windows XP/Vista/7	Windows XP/ more	Windows 2003/XP/Vista/7
Windows Processor	500 MHZ Intel Pentium 3	Pentium Level 4	Intel Pentium 3 or higher.
RAM	1 GB*	2GB	512 MB	2GB RAM recommended.
Disk Space	150 MB free disk space.	1GB free disk space.	71.9MB for an Eclipse Plugin	91.5MB or more.
Mac OS X		Mac OS 10.5 Intel	Mac OS 10.4 +	Mac OS 10.5 or higher
Processor		Dual Core Intel(32 or 64 bit)	Power PC G4/G5	1.42GHz Intel based Mac recommended.
RAM		512 MB RAM	512 MB RAM	2GB RAM recommended
Disk Space	650MB of free disk space.	71.9MB for an Eclipse Plugin	84.7MB or more.
Linux		Ubuntu 9.10	No preferences mentioned	GNOME or KDE Desktop
Processor		800MHz Intel Pentium III or equivalent	Pentium 4-level processor	Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or higher
RAM		512 MB RAM	512 MB RAM	2GB RAM recommended
Disk Space		650 MB of free disk space	71.9 MB for an Eclipse Plugin	82.1MB or more

General

	Netbeans	RadRails	Rubymine	IDEA IntelliJ
Statements and keyword completion	YES	NO	YES	YES
Generate Type Constructor	NO	YES	YES	NO
Override Method	NO	YES	YES	NO
Code Formatting	Yes	YES	YES	YES
Brace Matching	YES	YES	YES	YES
Go to symbol	NO	NO	YES	YES

Comparison notes

NetBeans

NetBeans provides effective and clear sytnax highlighting. The autocompletion provided is more advanced than Idea and Eclipse. However NetBeans misses a finalized installation configuration and live coding templates. NetBeans makes it easy to add plugins. It includes a complete editing assistance.

Eclipse

Eclipse provides advance refactoring tools developed by students and also comes with a well done documentation and explanations. The biggest advantage of Eclipse is its Debugging ability.

Idea

Idea has a nice syntax highlighting and interactivity with the coder. Autocompletion in Idea is limited to keywords and statements only.

RadRails

It supports syntax highlighting, auto completion, code assist and error reporting. It also supports refactoring but it is limited to instance variables, inlining and renaming. It also supports fast and integrated debugger.

Rubymine

Rubymine is an intelligent full featured code editor. It also performs automatic Ruby code styling with brace matching.It also provides code completion and navigation. RubyMine allows quick rake tasks execution.

Refactoring

	Netbeans	RadRails	Rubymine	IDEA IntelliJ
Rename	YES	YES	YES	YES
Convert Local variable to field	NO	YES	NO	NO
Encapsulate field	NO	YES	YES	NO
Extract Method	NO	YES	NO	NO
Inline Class	NO	YES	NO	NO
Inline Local Variable	NO	YES	NO	NO
Inline Method	NO	YES	NO	NO
Merge Class Parts in file	NO	YES	NO	NO
Merge with external Class Parts	NO	YES	NO	NO
Move Field	NO	YES	NO	NO
Move Method	NO	YES	NO	NO
Push Down	NO	YES	NO	NO
Split Local Variable	NO	YES	NO	NO

Version Control Integration

All the IDE support SVN, Git, CVS control version systems.

Debugging

Netbeans 7.0

Netbeans supports a configurable debugger which can be used to set breakpoints, look at the local variables, navigate the call stack and switch threads. The Netbeans debugger also supports expression evaluation, expression steping, multi-session debugging, multi- threaded Debugging etc. It also allows us to attach the debugger to any remote process started from the command line.

RadRails

Aptana RadRails has an integrated Debugger which allows us to set breakpoitns, inspect variables and control execution.

RubyMine

RubyMine supports an advanced graphical debugger. It provides a convenient user interface with a fully customizable UI. It also allows us to define hit conditions for breakpoints and determine whether to stop or continue the execution.

IntelliJ

It supports a highly fast and powerful debugger which is capable of executing multiple profiles. It also displays custom objects in debugger. Remote debugging, variable modifications and expression evaluations are other important debugging options supported.

Eclipse

The Ruby interpreter for Eclipse broadcasts debugging information over a specific (configurable) port, and tools like the RDT can listen over that port and supply the types of debugging support developers expect.