Ruby support in NetBeans

I just downloaded the latest version of NetBeans. Version 3.8, that is.  It has support for Ruby, PHP, Python, Java, and C++.  So I might have to start getting back into Ruby programming.

Ruby + NetBeans = Ruby IDE

NetBeans support for Ruby development has been around a pretty long time.

Sun's Java developers have had a non-grudging admiration for Ruby on Rails for years.

They liked it so much, in fact, that Sun bought up the JRuby effort.

The NetBeans 6.x IDE can support JRuby (Ruby running on Java VM) or regular Ruby development.

In the blog post NetBeans + Ruby = true you can see that NetBeans has had some support for Ruby for over a couple of years.

What is really exciting about Ruby support in NetBeans today is not that it simply exists but how much support for Ruby is in NetBeans now. Rails development, Gems - all that stuff that Ruby programmers take for granted but maybe would not expect to see in a Java-hosted IDE.

Nevertheless, it is there. Sun's employees/contributors have gone way beyond just adding a checkmark for the Ruby feature in the NetBeans IDE.

Sun brings forth a new Ruby IDE from NetBeans

Here is a pretty cool screenshot of a new Ruby IDE:

http://blogs.sun.com/tor/resource/ruby-editing.png

The post that describes what the picture means - which is just what it looks like it means - is here:

http://blogs.sun.com/tor/entry/netbeans_and_ruby_is_true

Sun is making huge strides in adding Ruby support to NetBeans, in part, because they hired the JRuby (Ruby in Java) developers a few months ago.

The Tor Norby weblog post entitled Welcome JRuby for details.