
Oracle discontinues Ruby/Rails support for NetBeans - jasim
http://wiki.netbeans.org/RubySupport
======
msy
You know between Java, Hudson and moves like this it feels like we're ripe for
an Onion-style article about Oracle execs running out of ideas for pissing off
the OSS community and so doing a road-trip around the country to individually
insult every OSS developer and user in the most graphic and personal way they
can think of.

~~~
vtail
I don't understand why this move should piss off anybody in the OSS community.
Oracle is a private company and as such has only obligations to its
shareholders. They may or may not support and/or promote OSS projects as they
see fit, same as every one of us. It's their free choice.

~~~
ebtalley
Look at what kind of headway corporations like google have made in the mind of
consumers when they go above and beyond the shareholder mantra. Oracle might
make short term gains on their terms but they have started to poison a whole
new generation of developers.

~~~
vtail
Oracle is not a person to make such a decision; it is its shareholders who
should decide how they want to spend their money. I wouldn't want to have a
tax (as an Oracle investor or a private citizen) to support OSS. I may want to
contribute my money and/or code as a _donation_ , but that will be my own
choice.

~~~
jrockway
I don't want to support Oracle's sailboat racing. So, I don't own any Oracle
shares. Pretty simple, isn't it?

~~~
oziumjinx
Larry Ellison pays for that out of pocket.

------
fierarul
The most important parts are:

> To maintain that objective and capitalize on the JDK 7 release themes [...]
> it is necessary that our engineering resources are committed to [...]
> NetBeans IDE 7.0. (from <http://netbeans.org/community/news/show/1507.html>
> )

and

>However, we strongly encourage our community of NetBeans Ruby users and
developers to volunteer to take on development of Ruby on Rails support for
the NetBeans IDE. (from <http://wiki.netbeans.org/RubySupport> )

So it's just a matter of not having enough resources to support everything.

Ruby and RoR is done basically entirely in-house by NetBeans/Oracle so it
seems odd that people are enraged that something they provided for free isn't
supported any longer due to normal restrictions.

I'm curious if:

1\. People outside Oracle will take over RoR development (the community seems
too small) OR

2\. People will pledge money to keep the plugin maintained (I somehow doubt
this but I would _like_ to see it happen).

~~~
hopeless
I think you're right. The intersection of interested Ruby developers + with
Java experience + knowledge of the Netbeans platform + and motivation/time to
maintain the plugin seems vanishingly small.

~~~
6ren
The only thing is that Ruby is still growing, and so represents possible
future revenue. But Oracle aims for short-term profitability now... which you
have to admit, has worked out pretty well for them.

Taking a wider view, I love the work to make things better (such as at Xerox
PARC), but it hasn't made money for those companies. Which is partly why Sun
no longer has any say in Java, or in general research, or indeed in anything
at all.

------
hopeless
Nooooo....

I've gradually moved away from NetBeans as a general Ruby/Rails editor but I
often came back for the great debugging support.

Any suggestion for alternative Rails debuggers?

~~~
daveungerer
<https://github.com/astashov/vim-ruby-debugger>

Works really well once you've sorted a few quirks - it's what finally allowed
me to fully switch from NetBeans to Vim about a month ago.

Hint: add the following to your .vimrc if using MacVim:

    
    
        let g:ruby_debugger_progname = 'mvim'

~~~
thecoffman
Thanks for the tip - will be checking this out tonight. Double thanks for the
MacVim tip - I'm sure I would have been tripped up and off to Google without
it.

------
jasim
RubyMine just tweeted: "We welcome all NetBeans users to start evaluating
RubyMine as your new Ruby/Rails IDE! Expect some great news very soon on our
pricing page!"

It is a good product and superior to NetBeans in many ways. The price was a
little on the higher side though (but worth it anyways). If it comes down, I
expect RubyMine to become the de-facto IDE for Ruby/Rails.

~~~
jpcx01
Yep, I think consolidation in the Ruby IDE space will be a good thing. All the
super elite people are using VIM / Emacs, and all the lazy people like me are
still using Textmate. If RubyMine can develop a decent size community around
it (with plugins, snippets, colors, etc), I'd definitely use it.

They really have to speed it up though. Feels like slogging through mud when
compared to TextMate. Not sure if its possible given their java codebase.

------
epochwolf
I've only found NetBeans useful under Windows. I've had a number of interface
problems on Linux and OSX that make it unusable. (Dialogs showing up blank all
the time and other problems)

~~~
rufugee
Those blank dialog issues are caused by Compiz, not Linux. You can either turn
Compiz off, or try setting this in your profile:

export AWT_Toolkit=MToolkit

------
grandalf
Is anybody actually using NetBeans for Ruby? I tried it very early in my
exploration of Ruby, but quickly switched to gedit, and eventually emacs
(using technomancy's emacs starter kit). Now that I use emacs, any other
editor (particularly one that requires a hand on the mouse) feels like an RSI
producing nightmare.

~~~
barmstrong
I use it daily at CarWoo.com

IDE's still have a few killer features over text editors that I miss when I
don't have them.

~~~
webuiarchitect
You should seriously give Vim a try; I bet you would never go back to any IDE
afterwards.

------
smitjel
Now more than ever, give vim + rails.vim a try. You won't bother with bloated
IDE's anymore.

------
moron4hire
well, there goes the only reason I ever used NetBeans.

------
torme
Honestly, I feel like the title here is a little misleading.

The message from the netbeans team is that they just didn't have enough
resources to support both Rails and upcoming Java 7 and so they had to drop
development. They also are encouraging the community to pick up and continue
development of Rails support for the IDE.

I guess it's possible that a lack of resources is just an excuse to remove
that support, but to me this seems like a genuine reason. I don't get the
sense that Oracle just pulled the plug for political reasons.

------
whynotmatt
I use Netbeans for java and used it when I started working with Ruby. But I
switched to RubyMine and really enjoy it. It took me a while to convince
myself to pay for an IDE after previously using Netbeans and Eclipse, but the
cost isn't high and it has really made me speed up my ruby work.

------
steipete
use mvim + NERDtree

~~~
Corrado
This morning I went looking for a new IDE to replace Netbeans/Aptana and found
VIM + Janus (<https://github.com/carlhuda/janus>). Janus is a collection of
customizations and plugins that make VIM look & feel almost like a GUI IDE.

Highly recommended!

------
mjuhl24
Any suggestions on an alternative IDE?

~~~
davidw
Emacs + various extensions and goodies.

~~~
mechanical_fish
This is _the_ killer feature of tools like emacs and vi: Your vendor cannot
abandon you and the code has a well-proven capability to be ported to just
about any platform.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
The cross-platform aspects of these tools is way undersold. I have all my
config checked in at BitBucket. I can sit down at a new machine, check out my
emacs configuration, tweak a couple variables if things are non-standard on
the box (paths and the like), and I've got my environment completely set up,
whether Mac, Windows, Linux, or something else.

------
empire29
I'm sure there's much more to it, but my initial reaction was to think it was
oracle snubbing salesforce in their acquisition of heroku. In the enterprise
(which sf targets) oracle is revered, and a robust oracle IDE does help give
credibility to ruby/rails. Aptana and ruby mine are the only other ruby/rails
IDE's that your run of the mill IT manager would consider full-featured im
aware of, and neither of them are backed by a brand as respected in the
enterprise as oracle.

------
noarchy
This is an unfortunate move, though I expect that the community will do what
it can to pick up the pieces here (which Oracle seems to state openly that
they want to see happen). NetBeans has improved so much over the years, I hate
to see "official" features like this get tossed out.

------
sigzero
"Second: Although our Ruby support has historically been well received, based
on existing low usage trends we are unable to justify the continued allocation
of resources to support the feature."

That is really all they needed to point out (for me).

------
jim_h
It looks like it's time to start learning vim or another alternative.

------
TwoSheds
NetBeans is open source. At least OpenOffice and Hudson have already been
forked. Are there any obstacles (name has to be changed of course) for forking
this project as well?

~~~
fierarul
No need:

>>However, we strongly encourage our community of NetBeans Ruby users and
developers to volunteer to take on development of Ruby on Rails support for
the NetBeans IDE.

------
runjake
Reasons:

1.) To focus more on Java

2.) Because the low usage of the RoR NetBeans functionality didn't warrant the
effort the team put into it.

------
sshconnection
Ugh, I had a feeling this was coming.

~~~
sigzero
According to the NB guys it was "low usage". It makes sense to spin it out for
the community to maintain if they want it.

------
_pius
Why do people use NetBeans for Rails?

~~~
tres
I started out with textmate way back when. I actually started using NetBeans
in hope that it would have decent support for Actionscript 3. I happened to
find out about the Rails support later on & was very happy I did.

Here's some of the reasons I switched:

1) inline syntax checking

2) ability to click through to called method (command + click in os x)

3) ability to have multiple views of the same file (clone window)

4) ability to have split screen editing.

5) debugging

6) inline documentation instantly available for any built in, plugin or
internal class (ctrl + space).

7) code completion / suggestion (this is not a lazy thing -- it's helpful for
discovering what's available in any given class)

8) indenting in textmate was never fun. In NetBeans just command + shift + f
and the whole file is properly indented.

Those are some of my reasons. Hopefully there's something else out there that
can replace NetBeans for me. I've been extremely grateful for it -- especially
at its price.

------
webuiarchitect
Who cares? Nobody used it anyway!!

------
DisposaBoy
Well, it's probably just me but Netbeans support for Ruby was as good as
Eclipse(PyDev) support for Python i.e it kinda worked but it left a little to
be desired, I for one am not gonna miss it.

------
sagarun
who cares? I use emacs+rinari

------
zemanel
as long as it isn't Python :p

------
dirtyhand
This is actually good news. The company I work at would never hire a Rails
developer that uses ANY sort of IDE. Learn to use a good text editor and learn
the Rails CLI.

~~~
rufugee
What about those who know a good text editor, know the Rails CLI, and _still_
prefer an IDE? There are worthwhile features that an IDE can do that a text
editor can't (easily).

If I were running your company, I'd focus more on the individual I was hiring
and what they bring to the table, and less on if they're using the hippest
tools.

