Nick Carroll

I have been searching for a decent IDE for Rails development on Windows. I have tried RadRails (now Aptana), IntelliJ, and JEdit. I was never satisfied with either of those editors, even though I think Eclipse and IntelliJ are excellent for Java development. I almost gave up searching for an IDE and instead revert back to using Emacs. But lo and behold I came across NetBeans.

I tried NetBeans for Java development about 7 years ago, and it was so bad then that I avoided it like the plague, until now. The newest version is NetBeans 6, and it is this version that supports Ruby and Rails development through a plugin.

NetBeans provides code completion (with hints and API documentation), source navigation, syntax highlighting, code folds, JRuby integration, SVN integration, and contextual menu items for rake tasks and generators. You can also start the web server and launch a browser to view your running application. These are just some of the features that I have come across today. Which is enough to keep me productive with my Ruby and Rails development.

The IDE itself looks to have had a face lift, the UI is now a lot cleaner and responsive. Also the IDE is not as bloated as it used to be with what appears to be an all new plugin architecture. I only have the base and ruby plugins installed. Who knows I might install the Java plugin as well, and give it a whirl with some Java development. But for now I think NetBeans will remain primarily as my Ruby and Rails IDE on Windows.