May 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)
I'm gearing up to write a comparative, multi-platform review of Rails IDEs. Before I freeze the list, I'd like to know what other people are using themselves to develop Rails sites.
Currently I'm considering these 8:
- Ruby in Steel
- Aptana RadRails
- Komodo
- 3rdRail
- NetBeans
- SciTE
- TextMate
- jEdit with Ruby plugin
Do you have experience with any of these you'd like to share?
Do you use something else for Rails development?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Rails IDEs you use yourself?
Posted by Martin Heller on May 20, 2008 11:16 AM
April 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)
A note from daughter #2, who had a choice of a Mac or PC laptop for her Ph.D. program next fall. "SK" is Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and SK largely uses Macs:
I just confirmed with SK that I want a Mac for next year. It's weird, I feel like I am switching over to the dark side or something.
I feel like they should put "Switching from PC to Mac" as one of those huge life changes that you go through that may cause you undue stress when combined with other life changing events.
It's an odd feeling.
I offered to lend her my copy of David Pogue's Switching to the Mac over the summer. Maybe I should also introduce her to Tom Yager. :)
Her decision was influenced by some recent negative experiences with Windows Vista and Word 2007 on her current laptop as well as the institution's obvious preference for Macs.
Posted by Martin Heller on April 24, 2008 02:50 PM
November 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
I know that my esteemed colleague Tom Yager loves OS X Leopard to death, but if you're a Java developer or a user of Java applications, Leopard may not be for you, at least not yet, and possibly not ever. Here's the skinny, courtesy of Michael Urban of JavaLobby, who says "So Long Apple, the Party's Over:"
...as we have remained loyal to Apple, Apple has basically spit in our face. Not only did Leopard not ship with Java 6, but Apple, in typical fashion, apparently thinks it has no obligation to its customers to inform them about why the plans changed, and when (or even if at this point?) Apple will ever have a working copy of Java 6. Apparently, Apple has even been just deleting threads in their forums where people are complaining that Java 6 doesn't exist, rather than actually respond to them and let them know if there is any kind of time line for Java 6. But wait... It gets worse...
Java 5 on Leopard is so broken, that some of it is flat out unusable. For example, I recently tested an application I wrote that uses Java2D for image zooming. On Linux, Windows, and on Java 5 in OS X Tiger, it worked fabulously. The scaling and zooming are very smooth. On Leopard, it is not even usable. It's slow, and manages to rescale during zooming at about 1 frame every 5 seconds. Working with IntelliJ IDEA in Leopard has been no picnic either. On a fairly regular basis, it will seem to just hang for 10 seconds or more and then start working again. I suspect the garbage collector is having problems, but once again, these are problems that did not exist in Java 5 with the previous version of OS X.
Caveat upgrader.
Posted by Martin Heller on November 1, 2007 07:34 AM
March 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Last Friday, I told you about my 13-year-old daughter's less than rhapsodic reaction to Windows Vista. I wasn't at all surprised when someone suggested that I should show her a Mac.
In fact, she has not only seen current Macs, she has tried to use them for real work. Bear in mind, though, that she uses Windows both at home and at school. Also, note that she tends to say "computer" when she actually means "monitor," like many people. I'm sure that you can infer what really happened here from her description.
She went to a friend's house to work on a report for school. As she tells it:
They have the biggest computer I've ever seen in their living room. It's huge. Everything on it is fancy and artsy. I hated it.
And it's white. Everything is white. The computer is white, the mouse is white, the keyboard is white. Ugh. I nicknamed it The White Monster.
Once my friend got it, she started bringing papers in to school that were unreadable. She'd make everything look beautiful on the big screen, but when she printed the paper the type would be tiny.
Anyway, I tried to use it for the report we were working on. I couldn't find the Internet. My friend said, "Use Safari." Why would they call the Internet Safari? Why not just call it the Internet?
They had Microsoft Word. Why get a Mac if you're going to run Windows programs?
My big problem was I couldn't copy and paste: there was no right mouse button. I hated that mouse. My friend showed me how to select and drag and drop, but I couldn't get used to it.
Finally, we went to her bedroom and used her old Windows computer. It worked fine.
Posted by Martin Heller on March 23, 2007 06:00 AM
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