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Ruby Dropped in Netbeans 7

Posted by Dionysios G. Synodinos on Jan 28, 2011

Sections
Development
Topics
Ruby ,
Netbeans ,
Dynamic Languages ,
Java ,
Languages ,
IDE ,
Programming

Ruby/RoR in NetBeans made headlines three years ago, but after Sun was acquired by Oracle there where fears that support for dynamic languages would suffer, as this IDE would be downsized. This has become a reality, since as of version 7, NetBeans will no longer support Ruby.

The NetBeans team announced that their main reason for dropping Ruby was the fact that their resources are limited and they’d like to focus on supporting the next major release of Java SE:

Java SE 7 and Java Development Kit 7 (JDK 7) are the next major releases of the Java SE platform, which Oracle is committed to deliver in 2011. A key objective of the NetBeans IDE has always been to offer superior support for the Java platform. To maintain that objective and capitalize on the JDK 7 release themes--multi-language support, developer productivity and performance--it is necessary that our engineering resources are committed to a timely and quality release of NetBeans IDE 7.0.

Regarding human resources, it is important to note that one of main figures behind the NetBeans “version 6 renaissance”, Tor Norbye, has left the company recently after the acquisition, as has Sun’s original JRuby team.

The NetBeans team, also claimed that the NetBeans IDE was not a big success in the Ruby community in the last three years, so it wouldn’t make sense to continue working on it:

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.

After this development, the NetBeans/Ruby support will become a community project, much like Python support, which was abandon before getting into prime-time NetBeans.

As for the rest of the dynamic languages, it seems that PHP and Groovy support will continue to be developed by Oracle, in version 7 of Netbeans, which is planned for April 2011.

Ruby developers that used NetBeans, might consider switching to other products like RubyMine, Aptana, RedCar, etc.

What IDE/editor are you using for Ruby/RoR development?

Dionysios G. Synodinos is a Web Engineer and a freelance consultant, focusing on Web technologies

  • This article is part of a featured topic series on Java

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8 comments

Watch Thread Reply

RubyMine by Mark Nadig Posted
Anyone actually using it? by Robert Bazinet Posted
Even if it won't be supported by the official dev. team by Michael Yoffe Posted
Hello , which IDE do you use? by Ke Aaron Posted
What will be removed next time... by Bai Hantsy Posted
What a pity by Douwe Vonk Posted
Eclipse PDT by Dave McNulla Posted
Rubymine by Nathan Van der Auwera Posted
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  1. Back to top

    RubyMine

    by Mark Nadig

    Using RubyMine now. Aptana 3 looks promising, but hard to tell when it will be out of beta.

    Reply

  2. Back to top

    Anyone actually using it?

    by Robert Bazinet

    It's a shame Oracle would make this decision but no at all surprising. As a Ruby developer I haven't given Netbeans a second thought and I think most Ruby devs can be counted the same way. I can't name one fellow developer who uses it. This could be a reason why the support was dropped.

    Reply

  3. Back to top

    Even if it won't be supported by the official dev. team

    by Michael Yoffe

    The plugin will still be available, right?

    Reply

  4. Back to top

    Hello , which IDE do you use?

    by Ke Aaron

    I start to learn RUBY now, not familiar with ruby tools.

    Reply

  5. Back to top

    What will be removed next time...

    by Bai Hantsy

    I became a big fan of NetBeans since 5.5, because Sun open source its enterprise development tools to NetBeans.org. But now, everything is discontinued, the IDE feature returned to before 5.5, the UML, VisualJSF, SOA and the later python, and today Ruby are disappeared in NetBeans.
    What is the next one, PHP or Groovy? And the future of NetBeans IDE?

    Reply

  6. Back to top

    What a pity

    by Douwe Vonk

    I was a happy Netbeans Ruby user. It also worked very well with JRuby mixing Java and Ruby. For me Netbeans was good for dynamic languages. I must see what I will do, I hope the plugin will stay in shape.

    Reply

  7. Back to top

    Eclipse PDT

    by Dave McNulla

    I use Eclipse with the dynamic language plugin (started about 4-5 months ago). Before that, I used SCite.

    Reply

  8. Back to top

    Rubymine

    by Nathan Van der Auwera

    I did use Netbeans intensively until i discovered Rubymine. Netbeans Ruby-support is really good, but Rubymine is just awesome. There is no comparison. Of course, Netbeans is free and you have to pay for Rubymine, but it is totally worth it (and especially now with the special offer).

    Reply