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 podcasts in iTunes store

If you want to learn more about Ruby, there are some podcasts about it in the iTMS.

Ruby seems out of the spotlight this year

I only know of two Ruby projects that garnered much attention last year:  Twitter, which gets a lot of buzz, and RubyCocoa which is still a work-in-progress but will hopefully get completed in the next year or two.

I have been focusing my programming skill enhancement efforts this year in Objective-C/Cocoa programming and extending my abilities to adjuncts to the Java EE standard. Products in those two areas look like they will get the most attention from software product customers this year.

Consequently, I have not been doing a lot with Ruby lately.

Python support in NetBeans 3.8

Sun has just released NetBeans 3.8, a new version of a popular Java IDE. NetBeans IDE includes support for lots of programming languages besides Java - among them, Python!

probably not doing more Ruby programming this year

I am pretty busy right now. I like to be learning new things in my spare time so I am prepared for the next big wave.

Ruby got a lot of buzz and I do think it is a good fit for some types of programming. Java seems to get better performance and has more error checking. Java programs compile much faster than C++ programs did back in the 1990's when Ruby was invented.

The relative advantages of being an interpreted language like Ruby have somewhat declined. The importance of having a program checked as much as possible before executing remains quite high for production environments: web, enterprise system, etc.

My current area of interest and study is Mac programming: Objective-C and the Cocoa framework.

I am already quite good at Java 6 and all the versions that came before it. Native Macintosh programs have capabilities that are quite unique compared to portable Java programs and Windows, Linux, and Unix programs.

Macs are where GUI software was first served up to the masses, and the Mac and its spin-off NeXT are what gave birth to the web about two decades ago. I want to see just how far this platform can go, and take advantage of its strengths. I can program it with Ruby, Python, Java, etc. and I have. Now, I want to move on and program it with its own native tools, languages, and frameworks.

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.

I have not written any Ruby code in several months

I really have not written or looked at any Ruby programs since late last year.

I feel a little uneasy with that because it is such a potent language. I am sure I do not want to get rusty at it, nor stall my on-going growth at using the language.

Any experienced, mature programmer should have Ruby and/or Python - or something like them - on their desktops.

No one programming language does all jobs well. Most programming languages have a set of things they do very well - better than most other languages can.

My gut instincts - call it intuition - tell me that Ruby is going to turn a new page and surge in popularity/mass-awareness next year sometime. I think 2008 is going to be the year that Ruby is recognized as a major hit.

I rather suspect that when that happens, the story will come out that 2006 and 2007 is when a lot of amazing Ruby programs got quietly deployed and took root.

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.

flexonrails.net

Go over and look at flexonrails.net and you will see that Flex now has a way to work with Ruby On Rails.

Ruby on Rails handles the CRUD (create, read, update, delete) database stuff - and FLEX (Flash) handles the GUI (graphical user interface) stuff.

Interesting idea!

Technorati tags: flex, adobe, weblog, framework, programming, ruby, rubyonrails

Riding Rails: Sun hires the JRuby team

Sun, which is about to launch JDK 1.6 and create a more comfortable working environment for Java / scripting-language hybrid applications/systems, just hired the JRuby team.

Riding Rails: Sun hires the JRuby team

JRuby is a Ruby interpreter written in Java. Same sort of idea as the Jython interpreter, which is an implementation of the Python language that is written in pure Java.

So, it looks like Ruby's stock just went up.

Technorati tags: ruby, jruby, sun, java

RadRails 0.7.1 Released

A new version of the Ruby/Rails IDE, RadRails - which is based on the Eclipse IDE - came out a little less than a week ago.

RadRails 0.7.1 Released :

The latest version of RadRails, the Ruby on Rails IDE, 0.7.1, has been released for Windows, OS X and Linux.

I have not updated in a few months so I cannot say firsthand what this new release is like.

I have been pretty impressed with what has come out so far.

The team working on it is very small, just a couple guys, fresh from school.

They are working at an IBM research center now, in Zurich.

IBM was instrumental in giving Java a leg up into corporate enterprise environments while other companies were sill poo-pooing it.

Then IBM turned around and rolled out the free Eclipse IDE, which has revolutionized the Java programming industry.

Now they are throwing their weight behind an effort to help make the Eclipse IDE capable of not merely supporting Java, C/C++, Python, and a host of other languages - Ruby included. They are building up the Eclipse ability to support RAD of web/database applications using Ruby.

Technorati tags: rubyonrails, ruby, programming, eclipse, ide

Download Ruby

Ruby 1.8.5 is out for Linux, MS-Windows, Mac OS X, and in source code form.

Ruby 1.8.5:

The current stable version is 1.8.5.

Ruby version 1.8.4 and Ruby on Rails will come preinstalled on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) when it comes out next year, the site says.

Technorati tags: ruby

Ruby Programming Language

The official Ruby programming language website has been updated with a new look.

Ruby Programming Language:

As you can see the much anticipated redesign is now live. It was over a year ago that it was suggested that a visual identity team be formed for the purpose of redesigning the Ruby Web site.

It looks pretty good. I think they did a good job.

There is an attractive use of color, a nice-looking/handy sidebar, and some navigation tabs.

Technorati tags: ruby

Too busy to Ruby this month

I have not even looked at a Ruby book since the beginning of August.

Here are my predictions for Ruby....

I am strongly convinced that Ruby has taken hold and will spread across the computer field like wildflowers over the course of 2006 and 2007.

In 2008, I predict there will be a SYS-CON magazine for Ruby and a whole bunch of books on how to do important kinds of computer programming in Ruby really quickly.

I doubt that Ruby will be any kind of a speed daemon in the next 2-3 years but it will probably happen by the end of this decade.

I had a little setback with my Rad Rails IDE a couple of months ago. After I got my Mac and it all configured with the latest Ruby and the latest Rails and some really cool gems, Rad Rails ability to update itself broke. Since then there have been several updates. I have not gotten them.

I am resigned to having to download Rad Rails and reinstall it all over again.

Given that I don't have any pressing need for Ruby and I am really busy at the moment, it seems likely I will push that exercise until the Fall.

Right now I have stuff to program in 5 computer languages Monday and none of them start with 'R'. Tomorrow, or next weekend, I need to do some stuff on my Mom's computer. She just bought a new Mac, and received an iPod Nano from me shortly after that. I have been doing a bit of tech support for her - setting things up and getting her acquainted.

Next month, I have the released of Firefox 2.0 to look forward to and celebrate. I want to flex my rusting XSLT skills because that will be really in demand.

I recently had my appreciation for JavaScript stimulated. There were a couple functions in the language I had never used before, and overlooked - and they turned out to be pretty cool.

I am looking at The Browser in a whole new light. Not just as a necessity but as the easiest platform to program for some things.

I already have lots of books on the web (HTML, XML, XSLT, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript) but most are from the late 1990s. I recently freshened up my collection. Now it covers 2006 standards quite admirably.

I am really amazed at how quickly web programming libraries and the still-vital web browsers out there have advanced in the past two years.

Even in 2002, I think people were still looking at a lot of things promised for the web that were still just all potential - not realized in products yet. Well, this year, that has all changed. The stuff is here and it runs on all desktops.

Well, so as you can see - I have been pretty busy of late. Instead of things letting up, it looks like I am going to be up to my eyeballs in things to do until November.

Ruby on Rails will ship with OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Wow, pretty amazing. Apple has decided to include Ruby On Rails with Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). The version included will apparently be at least the current version 1.1 - but it might even be Ruby On Rails 1.2.

A pretty excited blog post came out last Monday from Ruby On Rail's author, David.

Riding Rails: Ruby on Rails will ship with OS X 10.5 (Leopard):

It%u2019s finally official: Ruby on Rails will ship with the next version of OS X (see %u201CInternet and Web%u201D). Both server and client (on the developer DVD). We%u2019ve been working with Apple for quite a while to make this happen and its great to finally be able to share it with the world. The love for Ruby has definitely spread inside Apple and we%u2019ve been thrilled to see the level of interest they%u2019ve taken to get OS X to be a premiere development and deployment platform for Rails.

I really did not hear much about Ruby until just before Rails came out. Half a decade ago I knew a Java programmer who was about to switch to Ruby programming.

He liked the fact it was an interpreted environment. Having done varying amounts of work in a language similar to MUMPS, VB, Python, Perl, and even a little Tcl - I could understand wanting to do some programming in an interpreted language.

But doing all of it in an interpreted language - I just could not see it at the time.

Interestingly enough, the evolution of both interpreted and compiled languages has sped up dramatically since our conversation.

Both have taken on styles and features that I never really expected them to get. At least not just a few years later.

Java now has generics, similar to the templates feature of C++ - at least in appearance and purpose - though not implementation.

Meanwhile, Python and Ruby grew their functional programming support, suddenly developed powerful object-oriented frameworks for rapid web/database application development, and got onto the radar maps of the industry. That got them a lot of respect.

Running behind the scenes at Yahoo, Google, Blogger, and the Washington Post has escaped most programmer's notice. But I think a lot of programmers have heard about the Django project, which is written in Python - and Ruby on Rails, which of course is written in Ruby.

Apple certainly has. They have included Ruby with their operating system for quite a while now. For several years at least, perhaps since the beginning of OSX - I am not sure if it has been that long however.

I do know that when I flip through a book about Ruby programming, at least four out of five times I am looking at screenshots of a Ruby program that were snapped on a Macintosh running Mac OS X - not some other brand of computer.

Now that Apple is bringing Ruby on Rails to sit at the head of the table alongside honored guest Java, maybe there will be 9 out of 10 Ruby articles sporting Mac screenshots.

Technorati tags: rubyonrails, ruby, macosx, apple, programming, software