#: Lothar Scholz changed the world a bit at a time by saying on  8/28/2005 3:30 AM :#
> Hello Randy,
> RK>       * folding based on custom "sentinels" or features of the file (I have
> RK> nedit macros that fold on any TWiki level heading (i.e., on "---+ " through
> RK> "---++++++ ")
> 
> I could implement something like this but it's the first time i
> hear about it. Everybody wants it either on syntax elements
> (implemented in Arachno) or on indentation.
> 

I have seen this request for years in Java environment, but the interesting thing is that I never 
saw it used and after requesting it I never heard about anybody using it.

  > At the moment i see that there is heavy feature demand from two different
> camps, the one that want to add more ruby specific features (mostly
> this are the java converting guys) and the other people that want a general
> purpose editor with some ruby support (long time programmers of
> scripting languages and xemacs/vi users)
> 
> So i continue to do what i did in the past: look what i would like to see in
> a Ruby IDE and implement this first. Thats the way every successful Shareware
> application was developed in the past.
> 

I definitely see the business idea here, but I would like to add some personal remarks:

1/ imo competing with all editors features doesn't seem to be doable in a long run. Moreover I don't 
think that the developers that just fire vim/xemacs to do a few hundred line scripts once in a day 
will fire instead Arachno.

2/ after having a decent editor (and currently I find Arachno editor good enough) I think that the 
Ruby related features will bring the users. I hope and my estimations are that after the point where 
Ruby gets more accepted (and a good development environment can help this a lot) there will be a 
real need for a good IDE. All development languages used at large scale where backed by such tools. 
I heard about users asking for vim/xemacs functionality in say Visual Studio or Eclipse or IntelliJ, 
but the majority doesn't need that.

3/ in Java world there were/are lots of IDEs. When open source counter-attacked many of them where 
put out of business, because they haven't focused on what the need was. Currently I can count on the 
fingers of a single hand the commercial solution that remained on the market. And they succeeded on 
doing this because they understood what the target is. They succeeded in creating 'their' users.

4/ there are lots of functionality other than a 'perfect' editor the companies are looking for 
before deciding to adopt an IDE  (source control integration, automatic integration with tools, ease 
of usage and proficiency).

Here is a nowadays story about this:
my team decided to do a few-days investigation about Ruby development. we needed a small wiki 
application and we decided that this would be a nice moment to evaluate how a Ruby project 
maintainance/hacking can take place. In the first day, 2 of the guys stepped out saying that they 
lost all the day moving around in circles and finally doing nothing (the absolute newbies). The rest 
of 3 have spent almost 1.5 days to figure out what is happening in the solution we have chosen 
(almost random choice): we needed debuggers, tracing and lots of pure text searches to understand. 
Within a half a day we have finished what we have planned to do. The after job meeting concluded that:
- we've been highly unproductive because we lacked the ways to understand the existing code (so 
maintaining a project in a long term is very difficult)
- we've lost important time by switching around different tools we needed (source control 
integration was the most important missing point)
- once we have understood what we have to do, we did it quickly (this is what everybody on this list 
is saying too ;-).

However, if I would go to the upper management and have to choose a Ruby solution for a long term 
project I will not do it: they will refuse it right from the start because of the first 2 points.

I know this little story may be able to start again flames, but it was not intended to do this. I 
have just explained what is happening in a medium sized it shop. Sure, we the developers may be the 
first to blame cause probably we don't have the correct mindset. But this is why we are needing tools.

thanks for bearing with me for this long post,
:alex |.::the_mindstorm::.|