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I like good Integrated Development Environments. That being said, I still have to occasionally hunt for things in the Domino Designer, so I'm not sure how good it really is. However, I am comfortable with its' highly structured approach to programming artifacts. You always know that all Forms are in one place, all Views in another, all Script Libraries in another, and so on. In that way, I find the Rails™ approach similar. A specified default structure keeps things easy to build, easier to maintain, and generally lowers developer's stress levels.
So I went looking for a good IDE for Rails™. SciTE is included in the Ruby installation. It's not an IDE, it's a text editor. FreeRIDE is also included, it's very basic. The first real IDE I tried (because it's linked from the main Rails™ website http://www.rubyonrails.org) was RadRails http://www.radrails.org. Built on Eclipse, it was a very good introduction to Rails™ development. I happily used it for a number of months. Then one day I went looking for updates, and the site wasn't available. It turned out that Kyle Shank, the primary developer, got caught in a series of unfortunate events, and some fortunate ones. Among other things, his site was held ransom in the RegisterFly debacle. At the same time, he and his partners were concentrating on a new startup http://www.persai.com so they didn't have time left over to support or improve RadRails. At EclipseCon 2007 a deal was made for the development and support of RadRails to be handed over to Aptana http://aptana.com.
Not wishing to automatically switch suppliers, I went looking further afield. I looked again at SciTE, and found it as primitive as on my first look. I reviewed Ruby in Steel and rejected it because I didn't want to have the overhead and expense of MS Visual Studio. I also didn't look at NetBeans, mostly due to my unhappy experience with Java. I know, it's not just for Java development, but it just brings up too many bad associations for me.
I downloaded and tried RoRED from Plasmacode http://www.plasmacode.com. A nice little IDE, but again created and supported by one individual, with infrequent updates. I didn't see any prospect of any significant depth or longevity, so I removed it from my system.
Then I decided to take a step back. The Mac users all rave about TextMate, so I went looking for something similar in Windows. I found it in e http://e-texteditor.com. After using it for a few days, I paid my $34.95 and registered my beta copy. The feature that most intrigued me was the local change mapping. I thought it was pretty ingenious, and worth supporting all on its own. Since then, I have found myself using it less frequently, simply because it takes a fair bit of time on initial load. I chose to install the full CygWin libraries, so that isn't surprising. I may back off on having e as the default text editor, but it's a keeper.
So I went back to Aptana. It just never really turned my crank. It wasn't anything significant, just an accumulation of little annoyances. The fit just isn't there for me. At this point, I decided to install Lotus Notes 8. This is a major release for IBM, the culmination of several years of massaging expectations. It is the first version that's Eclipse-based. Based on my Aptana experience, I expected Notes 8 to be slow and flaky. It's just the opposite. It loads a bit slower than Notes 7, but once loaded it's noticeably faster. It's also very stable. In about 2 weeks, I have managed to crash it only once, and it was a recoverable crash, not the Red Screen of Death which generally requires a reboot of the O/S. So, thinking "this is pretty good", I started my search for a Rails™ IDE again.
Somehow I stumbled on 3rd Rail http://www.codegear.com/products/3rdrail a few days after it was announced. I've long had a soft spot for Borland, having used Quattro Pro until the bitter end. Ok, so that soft spot may be in my head. Why pay for software that everyone else is giving away? Well, first, there's a 30-day trial. Second, I figure if it makes me more productive and causes less bad language, it will pay for itself and my wife will be happier. Third, it seems to me that a profit-motivated company is likely to keep developing and supporting the product. In the end, all that doesn't matter if the product doesn't fit. So far, it fits quite well. Besides, I like the slightly esoteric allusion in the name. Has my search for the "ideal" Rails™ IDE ended? Maybe.
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