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	Helios 3.6	NetBeans 7.0.1	Aptana 2.0.5	RubyMine 3.2.3
Windows	Windows XP/Vista/7	Windows XP/Vista/7	Windows XP/ more	Windows 2003/XP/Vista/7
Windows Processor	P4 or higher	500 MHZ Intel Pentium 3	Pentium Level 4	Intel Pentium 3 or higher.
RAM	1 GB*	2GB	512 MB	2GB RAM recommended.
Disk Space	1GB free disk space.	1GB free disk space.	71.9MB for an Eclipse Plugin	91.5MB or more.
Mac OS X	Mac OS X 10.4.10 minimum	Mac OS 10.5 Intel	Mac OS 10.4 +	Mac OS 10.5 or higher
Processor	Dual-Core Intel, PowerPC G5	Dual Core Intel(32 or 64 bit)	Power PC G4/G5	1.42GHz Intel based Mac recommended.
RAM	512 MB of RAM (2 GB recommended)	512 MB RAM	512 MB RAM	2GB RAM recommended
Disk Space	122MB	650MB of free disk space.	71.9MB for an Eclipse Plugin.	84.7MB or more.
Linux	No preferences mentioned.	Ubuntu 9.10	No preferences mentioned.	GNOME or KDE Desktop.
Processor	Linux x86	800MHz Intel Pentium III or equivalent.	Pentium 4-level processor.	Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or higher.
RAM	64 MB	512 MB RAM	512 MB RAM	2GB RAM recommended
Disk Space	58 MB	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

Editing

	Eclipse	RadRails	NetBeans	Rubymine
Code Analysis	YES	YES	YES	YES
Call Hierarchy View	YES	YES	NO	NO
Regular Expression Tester	YES	YES	NO	NO
Mark Occurences	YES	YES	YES	NO
Smart Indent	YES	YES	YES	NO
Mylyn Integration	YES	YES	NO	NO

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

As it can be concluded from the above table, Eclipse IDE with the Ruby development tools plugin is far better for editing than the other IDE's .

Version Control Integration

All the IDE's under comparison (Aptana RadRails, Ruby Mine, Eclipse and NetBeans) support SVN, Git, CVS control version systems.

Individual features are:

Recognition of existing version-controlled directories.
Versioning window shows new, removed, or modified files.
Color-coded status of lines, files and folders: New, removed, up-to-date, or modified.
Color-coded Diff Viewer for intuitive merge conflict resolution.
Export Diff Patch action.
Sharable project metadata.

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.

Conclusion

Users accustomed on working in Eclipse can continue using the RadRails plugin. Eclipse provides excellent debugging capabilities.

NetBeans supports multiple languages like C++, Java.

RubyMine is exceptionally good when it comes to refactoring and can be chosen over other IDE's if this is of greater utility. RubyMine also has an intelligent code editor which others don't.

The document covers some of the major IDE's in the market for Ruby. Every IDE has its own advantages and disadvantages. The criteria for choosing a specific IDE solely depends on the perspective of a Ruby programmer and which features he wants the most from the IDE as compared to others.