Ruby IDE is set to shine

ActiveState to support open source language

ActiveState is looking to accommodate the burgeoning interest in the open source Ruby programming language by supporting it in the company’s IDE.

ActiveState’s Komodo 3.5 IDE adds Ruby to a list of other programming languages supported such as Python, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and Perl. Version 3.5 also offers support of the Mac OS X platform.

Komodo focuses on “dynamic” languages, says David Ascher, chief technologist at ActiveState. “Dynamic languages are pretty well suited for projects where you have fast-changing requirements,” Ascher says.

Ruby is particularly successful because of the Ruby on Rails web application framework, he adds. The developer of Ruby on Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, a partner and programmer at hosted application provider 37signals, is pleased to see commercial efforts sprouting around Ruby.

“I think it’s great to see that there’s an ecosystem growing up around Ruby and especially with Rails right now, I think that commercial involvement in open source is definitely beneficial,” Hansson says.

The attraction to Ruby, and Ruby on Rails, is that Ruby is geared towards humans rather than compilers, Hansson says. 

“It’s making the human programmer’s job easier,” Hansson says. “I think the focus of Ruby has been to make programmers happy, and I think that is very different from the goals that were in the creation of Java, which was just a nicer C. It’s a different level of ambition.”

Komodo 3.5 features Ruby on Rails debugging, as well as code intelligence capabilities such as AutoComplete and CallTips to provide as-you-type syntax checking. Also included are code-colourising, folding, automatic end statements and smart indenting. 

A Ruby on Rails’ developer in Vancouver, Canada, says he favoured Komodo’s approach. “I like that they’re focusing more on the front end, which is basically where most of the work resides in Rails,” says Alex Bunardzic, technical architect at development house Jooto.

Komodo 3.5 ships for Mac OS X on Thursday, priced at US$295 (NZ$437) for the Professional edition and US$29.95 for an abbreviated Personal Edition. The Professional Edition has added features such as integration with source code control systems and a GUI builder.

The Linux and Windows version of the product ships later this year.