David Vallner wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>>> Total size of downloads: 165,416 kB
[snip]

I only used the download size as an indicator of package size. I usually
get close to my Comcast 8 mbit download speeds from the Gentoo mirror
down the road about sixty miles at Oregon State University. :)

> I can also very well understand the decision to make RDT and RADRails
> Eclipse plugins. Java development bloatware or not, it probably has an
> amazing amount of resources for tool development included, and you don't
> have to reinvent the wheel with project management, version control
> integration, code template support, and the list could go on and on. You
> can concentrate on just making it support Ruby, and I could invoke the
> DRY principle here, which probably holds more value than
> not-quite-tangible lightweight / heavyweight "language attitude"
> arguments when deciding how to implement a fairly complex tool. (SWT
> also looks better than FOX if you're being aesthetic.)

I think more to the point is that Eclipse has a lot of Java web
developer muscle memory behind it. Suppose you took someone used to
Eclipse and said, "OK -- here's Rails. You don't need any of that junk.
Just open up a couple of konsole or xterm or cmd windows and a browser,
edit a couple of config files and Ruby scripts in vi or emacs or
notepad, and you're on the air!" :)

"Oh yeah? We don't use ant, we use rake. We don't use junit ..." I'm
used to lightweight tools ... a lot of people aren't.

> PS: If trying out, go for Eclipse 3.1. 3.0 was rather slow, and 3.2 is
> still early adoption and needs to have some kinks worked out.

I don't know if 3.1 is available in Gentoo, and even if it is, since
this is a hobby project, I think if I use Eclipse at all it will be for
the learning experience, and I'll go with 3.2. What I need is something
that understands C/C++, Python and Ruby more or less equally well. What
I *don't* need for this project is anything related to Java! And Eclipse
seems very much of the Java people, by the Java people and for the Java
people.

I did download and install KDevelop 3.3.4. It seems to have some Rails
support built in, though all I did was create a project just to watch
what happened. The only gotcha with KDevelop is that it's probably Linux
only. I suspect it could be made to work (with a sizable performance
hit) under CygWin, since I've seen KDE made to work that way (with a
sizable performance hit). Right now KDevelop looks like my best bet,
although I haven't looked at what the Gnome side of the house has to
offer yet.