30 ms·

Redcar: It's time for a Ruby editor (in Ruby) [video]

42 points by ericb 16y ago

ericb 16y ago
I brought up my desire for a good ruby editor in ruby previously in an HN comment and got some "why would you want that?" responses. I hope watching this, people might get a glimpse of why I think this is awesome. edit: I installed it and it seems pretty nice so far. All it really needs for me to pledge my undying love is a built-in debugger, and that is on the roadmap. Oh, and perhaps some git integration (as opposed to SVN).
PaulHoule 16y ago
kinda like the Python IDE in Python that people have been dreaming about as long as there has been Python?
- DanielRibeiro 16y ago
  However Redcar it is also compatible with texmate bundles. So it is more like emacs.
  - nimms 16y ago
    don't mean to nitpick but textmate bundle support doesn't an emacs make. redcars extensibility and openness make it more like emacs.
    - DanielRibeiro 16y ago
      Yes, however the point I was making was more simple: a better emacs, but respecting what emacs created: texmate. A better texmate, but respecting what texmate created: redcar. But if you are nitpicking, it is not as simple, and at this moment it is more like a promise. But you are right that redcar and emacs have a more similar philosophy.
msie 16y ago
Hmmm, it seems that it runs on JRuby.
thecoffman 16y ago
I've never understood the desire to have specialized editors for a specific language. If you want to go to a full blown IDE thats one thing - Eclipse and Visual Studio are powerful tools - but if you want to _edit_ code efficiently I don't understand why you wouldn't learn one editor very well and use it for all languages. I personally am a vim guy but emacs, textmate, whatever, would be fine and they all work with clojure, ruby, python, c, and whatever the language du jour is tomorrow too. Not that this isn't cool and I don't fault them for scratching a personal itch - its just an itch I don't have.
- ericb 16y ago
  > I don't understand why you wouldn't learn one editor very well and use it for all languages. If ruby is your preferred language, you could do that with Redcar, and enjoy the process of extending the editor.
  - thecoffman 16y ago
    This is very true and a valid point. If I didn't already know vim it would be a compelling argument for sure - but as I've already invested the time to learn it and it supports plugins written in ruby anyways there just isn't reason enough to switch for me. However - for someone who isn't already invested in an editor that wants that type of flexibility and wants to write extensions in ruby - this could very well be a winner!
    - ericb 16y ago
      Actually that is the situation I'm in. I was just about to jump into emacs after working mainly with Netbeans, and failing to make the switch to vim, but this actually looks really appealing to me.
      - sp4rki 16y ago
        You probably tried the no arrows method of switching to Vim. A piece of advice, just use it. Try to learn a few movements and commands each day as you need them, but keep using the editor as you used to use any other editor until you've learned enough of Vim. Baby steps and a week or two into it you will start to wonder how you lived without it.
Andys 16y ago
Unfortunately, it depends on jRuby.
- ericb 16y ago
  The install was seamless and keeps that out of your way. Is there some other (large) objection I'm missing that makes JRuby an issue?
  - Andys 16y ago
    Annoying to have such a big new dependency when I'm using Ruby 1.9.2 for everything else Ruby-related. Would make more sense to me to use a Ruby editor if it actually ran on the mainstream Ruby interpreter and not jRuby.
JonnieCache 16y ago
I tried an early version, it sucked up entirely too much RAM for an app that is supposed to be simple. Hundreds of megs. I assume this is down to the JVM + the JRuby runtime. As someone wanting 'a better textmate,' I see much more hope in http://kodapp.com http://kodapp.com, though it isn't cross-platform (it depends on OSX's Cocoa framework.) The early beta is already very impressive, especially the neatness of its codebase. And no, this isn't the place to go recommending (vim|emacs). We get it.
- ericb 16y ago
  > it sucked up entirely too much RAM for an app that is supposed to be simple. Hundreds of megs. I show 175 megs of Real Memory used on OS X at the moment for Redcar. So still not "small," but since development is the primary focus of my machine, it doesn't bother me at all, especially considering firefox is at 241 megs at the moment.
- netghost 16y ago
  Except Kod doesn't really do anything much yet ;) I think we're stuck with Textmate (which rocks for what it's worth).
  - JonnieCache 16y ago
    That's because the devs are mainly interested right now in hacking the text parser and the associated low level stuff that makes an app really good in the long run. This is what makes me so hopeful.
crazydiamond 16y ago
Has anyone tried the ruby editor (previously called ver) by Michael Fellinger. It now uses Ruby Tk. I cannot recall the name. (Just tried searching, but could not find it).

42 points by ericb 16y ago

ericb 16y ago

I brought up my desire for a good ruby editor in ruby previously in an HN comment and got some "why would you want that?" responses. I hope watching this, people might get a glimpse of why I think this is awesome. edit: I installed it and it seems pretty nice so far. All it really needs for me to pledge my undying love is a built-in debugger, and that is on the roadmap. Oh, and perhaps some git integration (as opposed to SVN).

PaulHoule 16y ago

kinda like the Python IDE in Python that people have been dreaming about as long as there has been Python?

DanielRibeiro 16y ago
However Redcar it is also compatible with texmate bundles. So it is more like emacs.
- nimms 16y ago
  don't mean to nitpick but textmate bundle support doesn't an emacs make. redcars extensibility and openness make it more like emacs.
  - DanielRibeiro 16y ago
    Yes, however the point I was making was more simple: a better emacs, but respecting what emacs created: texmate. A better texmate, but respecting what texmate created: redcar. But if you are nitpicking, it is not as simple, and at this moment it is more like a promise. But you are right that redcar and emacs have a more similar philosophy.

msie 16y ago

Hmmm, it seems that it runs on JRuby.

thecoffman 16y ago

I've never understood the desire to have specialized editors for a specific language. If you want to go to a full blown IDE thats one thing - Eclipse and Visual Studio are powerful tools - but if you want to _edit_ code efficiently I don't understand why you wouldn't learn one editor very well and use it for all languages. I personally am a vim guy but emacs, textmate, whatever, would be fine and they all work with clojure, ruby, python, c, and whatever the language du jour is tomorrow too. Not that this isn't cool and I don't fault them for scratching a personal itch - its just an itch I don't have.

ericb 16y ago
> I don't understand why you wouldn't learn one editor very well and use it for all languages. If ruby is your preferred language, you could do that with Redcar, and enjoy the process of extending the editor.
- thecoffman 16y ago
  This is very true and a valid point. If I didn't already know vim it would be a compelling argument for sure - but as I've already invested the time to learn it and it supports plugins written in ruby anyways there just isn't reason enough to switch for me. However - for someone who isn't already invested in an editor that wants that type of flexibility and wants to write extensions in ruby - this could very well be a winner!
  - ericb 16y ago
    Actually that is the situation I'm in. I was just about to jump into emacs after working mainly with Netbeans, and failing to make the switch to vim, but this actually looks really appealing to me.
    - sp4rki 16y ago
      You probably tried the no arrows method of switching to Vim. A piece of advice, just use it. Try to learn a few movements and commands each day as you need them, but keep using the editor as you used to use any other editor until you've learned enough of Vim. Baby steps and a week or two into it you will start to wonder how you lived without it.

Andys 16y ago

Unfortunately, it depends on jRuby.

ericb 16y ago
The install was seamless and keeps that out of your way. Is there some other (large) objection I'm missing that makes JRuby an issue?
- Andys 16y ago
  Annoying to have such a big new dependency when I'm using Ruby 1.9.2 for everything else Ruby-related. Would make more sense to me to use a Ruby editor if it actually ran on the mainstream Ruby interpreter and not jRuby.

JonnieCache 16y ago

I tried an early version, it sucked up entirely too much RAM for an app that is supposed to be simple. Hundreds of megs. I assume this is down to the JVM + the JRuby runtime. As someone wanting 'a better textmate,' I see much more hope in http://kodapp.com http://kodapp.com, though it isn't cross-platform (it depends on OSX's Cocoa framework.) The early beta is already very impressive, especially the neatness of its codebase. And no, this isn't the place to go recommending (vim|emacs). We get it.

ericb 16y ago
> it sucked up entirely too much RAM for an app that is supposed to be simple. Hundreds of megs. I show 175 megs of Real Memory used on OS X at the moment for Redcar. So still not "small," but since development is the primary focus of my machine, it doesn't bother me at all, especially considering firefox is at 241 megs at the moment.
netghost 16y ago
Except Kod doesn't really do anything much yet ;) I think we're stuck with Textmate (which rocks for what it's worth).
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  That's because the devs are mainly interested right now in hacking the text parser and the associated low level stuff that makes an app really good in the long run. This is what makes me so hopeful.

crazydiamond 16y ago

Has anyone tried the ruby editor (previously called ver) by Michael Fellinger. It now uses Ruby Tk. I cannot recall the name. (Just tried searching, but could not find it).