WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL CALENDAR EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> COLUMNS

Integration Watch: A sudden bumper crop of IDEs

By Andrew Binstock

December 8, 2008 — (Page 1 of 2)
I have intermittently discussed IDEs in this column, as they are among my favorite areas of technology. Not so long ago, I opined that the world of IDEs was likely to see more consolidation, largely as a result of the availability of good open-source IDEs and the reluctance of companies to continue developing their own products when they could simply adopt an alternative. That alternative in many cases was Eclipse; we have seen its adoption by a number of companies that formerly used their own IDE frameworks.

For example, JBuilder, a Java IDE designed by Borland and now owned by Embarcadero Technologies, migrated to Eclipse. The new product was excellent but did not do well commercially. BEA (now part of Oracle) and other vendors also moved to Eclipse, turning out good products that did not find wide adoption.

So Eclipse has not overturned the world of IDEs. In fact, several years on, most of the major IDEs are still standing, and new entrants have joined the fray.

The newest addition is RubyMine, a Ruby environment from JetBrains, the same outfit that puts out the brilliant IntelliJ IDEA Java environment. The product is still in public preview and can be downloaded for free. It supports both Ruby and Ruby on Rails. It has all the standard features of a language IDE (such as syntax highlighting, code completion and project navigation), plus on-the-fly code analysis with refactoring; unit testing with RSpec and Test::Unit; a full debugger with Rails support; and Rake integration. It looks very promising. It will not remain free; the production version, like the company’s other products, will be sold on a per-developer basis. But users of IntelliJ IDEA often state that its superiority to open-source IDEs makes it well worth the cost. I have little doubt that RubyMine will meet the same high standard.

Among open-source IDEs, the best Ruby support is currently found in NetBeans. That product will have moved to version 6.5 by the time this column appears. The release adds support for Groovy, Grails and PHP, and it contains enhanced support for JavaScript. NetBeans is an extensive environment that’s easy to use and lacks the heavy feel of Eclipse.

Related Search Term(s): Eclipse, IDEs, Java, open source, Ruby, ActiveState, JetBrains, Oracle

Pages 1 2

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33098

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development

Zeichick’s Take: Looking for the best of the best of the best
It's time once again for readers to send in nominees for the SD Times 100

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles

Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.

The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...

Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...

Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...

Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

Oracle donates Hudson to Eclipse Foundation Open-source Foundation will shepherd Hudson, with additional developers being committed by various companies

When open-source projects go commercial Companies are increasingly using open source software as a way to leverage proprietary components or services

In tough financial times, open source got more than a look It was a year of infrastructure, it was a year of enhanced development tools. But most of all, it was the year in which repositories grew up and mobile phones opened up.

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

Oracle donates Hudson to Eclipse Foundation
Open-source Foundation will shepherd Hudson, with additional developers being committed by various companies Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST