Okay. So I probably need to work on some documentation.

RubyEclipse, or RDT as I like to call it when talking to other Eclipse
users, is a plugin for the Eclipse framework that is being developed at
www.eclipse.org. Eclipse is written in Java, but that in no way prevents it
from being a useful application (although everyone I know who uses Ruby
thinks it should be rewritten in that language). That aside, there is no
usefulness in rewriting resource manipulation tools (cut, paste, code
management...). In order to make Eclipse able to understand Ruby artifacts,
it must be 'taught', as they like to say at IBM when they outline the
framework. That is what I want to accomplish. Some of my co-workers are
actually being paid to develop a testing framework in Ruby. They are
accustomed to working in an object-based environment (as opposed to file
based), and so am I. It is very important to us as developers to remove the
pain of dealing with the environment: allow us to think about the problems
we are trying to solve and model them in an object-oriented way.

Anyway, you need to download Eclipse
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php M5. This is the ONLY version that
the RDT will run in. I am waiting for them to stablize the  code for
release, at which point I will work diligenty to comply with the release
API. You can then extract the RDT plugins into the eclipse/plugins
directory.

When you fire up Eclipse, you will now have tools to edit and run Ruby code.
This first release was mostly a coming out, and there is much that needs to
be done. Here is the process that is supported right now:

1. Create a Ruby Project - Click on the New Resource Wizard button. This is
the little guy located on the top left of the Resource Perspective (and
every other Perspective). You should see an entry for Ruby. Choose Ruby
Project and click next. Enter the name of your project. Projects are simply
a way to manage resources. They provide a sort of namespace, as well. You
will see more of this as we go forward, but those of you familiar with
Eclipse and developing Java in it see this with build paths configuration.

2. Create folders and files - Click on the New Resource Wizard button. You
can now choose Simple > Folder or Simple > File. The folders can contain .rb
files any level deep. When you create a .rb file, Eclipse will open a Ruby
editor. Note that the editor has a long way to go to be considered perfect,
but with Eclipse as the framework, it won't take as long as it could.
Eclipse provides outliner (an object view of the code), code completion and
other API tools to make developing the editor a much simpler matter. More to
come!!

3. Make your files 'require folder1/folder2/someFile' - You can reference
modules in your code, even when they exist in other projects. You must right
click on the project and choose Properties > Ruby Project Properties. In
here you can check other Ruby projects that you would like to include in
your build path.

4. Choose a file or a project and click on the Running Man button - This
will allow you to create a Launch Configuration. This is where you can
specify exactly which file to launch, interpreter and program arguments, and
which interpreter to run with. If you have yet to define an interpreter,
click New. You can also define interpreters in Window > Preferences > Ruby.
Click on Run. You should see the debugger come up (unless you specify in
Preferences that it should not Window > Preferences > Debug > Uncheck 'Show
Debug Perspective when a program is launched in run mode'. Your I/O will be
hooked up to another view called 'Console'.

5. I have not done anything with Ruby GUI stuff. I would be curious to know
if anyone gets something running, recommendations, etc.

Please, help me to know what needs to be done. I need a 'customer', and
would like for the Ruby developer community to be it. Thanks for trying it
out, all of you who have. If you want to keep up on what is going on, and
would like to ask more questions, please sign up and move the discussions
over here
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rubyeclipse-development. We
wouldn't want to muddy the Ruby list up with too much Java, now would we?

Adam Williams
RoleModel Software, Inc.
The XP(tm) Software Studio(tm)
http://www.rolemodelsoftware.com
mailto:awilliams / rolemodelsoft.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Han Holl [mailto:han / pobox.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 11:37 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: [ANN] RubyEclipse released


Adam Williams wrote:

 >First release of the highly anticipated (maybe just by me) Ruby IDE.
Get it
 >here https://sourceforge.net/projects/rubyeclipse/. Learn more about
it here
 >http://rubyeclipse.sourceforge.net/wiki/. Use it. Love it. Help me
know what
 >it needs.
 >
 >
 >
I got it to install (with a stable eclipse release), but now I keep
getting this.
(no matter what I try to do):


An unexpected exception has been detected in native code outside the VM.
Unexpected Signal : 11 occurred at PC=0x4a3d1d47
Function name=XFlush
Library=/usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6

Current Java thread:
         at
org.eclipse.swt.internal.motif.KDE.KMimeType_allMimeTypes(Native Method)
         at
org.eclipse.swt.program.Program.kde_getMimeInfo(Program.java:566)

(I'll spare you the rest of the backtrace).
Any ideas what this might mean ?

System is RedHat Linux 7.2, with all redhat updates applied.

Cheers,

Han Holl