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I've been a Visual Studio user since 1997, and used VB 3.0 before that. My whole professional life has been spent inside the Microsoft development environments.

Now I would like to branch out into Ruby on Rails to try something different, and it doesn't have the kind of vendor support that C# does (for very obvious reasons).

For someone coming from the world of Visual Studio, what is the best total environment (IDE, tools, gems, etc) to set up for RoR development on Windows that would make the transition easier?

BIBD
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Robert S.
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  • I once was in a similar situation.. after tried many, I choose RubyMine from JetBrains. In fact, today, I like it more than Visual Studio! – Fernando Vieira Jun 30 '16 at 23:01

6 Answers6

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If you want to stick with Visual Studio, you can always use the Ruby in Steel plugin by Sapphire Steel. The best traditional IDE for Ruby is probably NetBeans, it even has a special stripped-down Ruby Edition.

However, note that unlike less expressive languages like Java, C# or VB.NET, you can not only get by, but even be more productive with a good text editor than with a traditional static IDE. IDEs like NetBeans, Eclipse and Visual Studio are designed with static languages in mind, and trying to force Ruby into that ecosystem is just unnatural.

There is a nice article on The Best Environment for Rails on Windows by Fabio Akita that you might want to read. While I don't agree with everything he writes (mostly because I don't use Rails), it is a pretty good introduction of how you might want to setup a development environment specifically for Rails.

hello_earth
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Jörg W Mittag
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    I really don't understand what the dynamic nature of the language has to do with whether an IDE would be helpful or not. – Kyberias Nov 25 '10 at 13:25
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    Just a quick update: NetBeans dropped "built in" Ruby support in version 7.0: http://wiki.netbeans.org/RubySupport – Tieson T. Jan 26 '14 at 20:36
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Try JetBrains RubyMine. When installing it, you have the option to set it up to match Visual Studio environment settings. All the short cuts are the same as Visual Studio. It even switches the copy and paste keys from command to control on a Mac. It's a bit expensive considering how many free options there are but in my eyes its worth it.

This thing is so highly customizable it's almost overwhelming.

Chris Lees
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  • I jsut started using ruby on rails / rubymine. I really like VS. But when I installed rubymine I didnt get the option to match VS settings. Is there any way to do it after install without have to run through 1000 different settings. Like...is there some kind of quick setting configuration place or tool or importer. – Francis Rodgers Dec 21 '13 at 15:44
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Netbeans! Its got the most similar features. I developed for years in VS before the switch. It was the only one that I really liked and felt comfortable using.

Netbeans.org

Brian
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  • That's all I'll need? Does it offer source control integration, third-party plugins, and so on? – Robert S. Mar 24 '09 at 18:57
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    It sure does. Its got great integration for svn (which I use) and others (that I don't). Tons of plugins as well. Its all I use these days. – Brian Mar 24 '09 at 23:39
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You might find that RadRails (Aptana) is an excellent choice: (http://www.aptana.com/rails) - NOTE: Make sure you look at the Features and Comparisons tab as RadRails has many compelling features. Additionally, I have used Aptana Studio for JQuery development and it help me to be very productive.

I have tried Netbeans and it seemed very promising as well but that is mentioned many times so I thought to offer another approach I was aware of.

Hope this helps!

Tab
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In 2018? Visual Studio Code! These things always seem to come full circle right?

spume
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  • Yes, Visual Studio Code improved a lot in recent years. Easy to configure and debug. I am using it on mac! See this to configure [debugging-a-rails-server-in-visual-studio-code](https://dzone.com/articles/debugging-a-rails-server-in-visual-studio-code) – Pankaj Jul 18 '18 at 06:59
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I use netbeans for two reasons. I like the visual studio style navigation pane and for the debugger.

Be warned though, Netbeans is pretty slow. It doesn't bother me that much because I too am slow.

I also dislike the filename tabs because you can easily be confused about what file you are working on since there is no directory information unless you mouse over the tab.

srboisvert
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    As an update I have now switched over to Rubymine and am loving it. It is cross platform which means I can use it on all of my computers. It is more up to date than other IDEs with fast version iteration and it is much faster than Netbeans was. I bought a license after about a year of playing around with their EAP versions when Sun got picked up by Oracle and Netbean's ruby support was canceled. – srboisvert Mar 22 '11 at 16:48