Ruby For The Mac

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You’re going to spend a lot of your time as a developer inside the editor, so it important to use an editor that you’re comfortable & productive with.

All of these editors support Windows, Linux & Mac. Let’s get started! Atom is an open-source code editor from Github. It supports many programming languages including Ruby. Pros: Git integration; Good support for code snippets (time saver) Allows you. In the Mac space, the open source MacRuby project is intended to provide an optimized and integrated version of Ruby for Mac OS X and be compatible with Ruby programs. MacRuby leverages Apple's. This will take about 30 minutes. We will be setting up a Ruby on Rails development environment on macOS 10.15 Catalina. Older versions of OS are mostly compatible so follow along as far as you can and then Google search for any problems you run into. The only reasons to write Ruby on a Mac are a) you want to spend more money on hardware because it is pretty and b) you think fancy window transitions make you a better programmer. The best environment for Rails dev is Linux (Ubuntu works great). Your production environment will probably be running some flavor of Linux so why not on dev?

In this article:

I want to help you choose which Ruby IDE / Editor is right for you!

You don’t need to stress over this decision, just pick one, give it a try for a few weeks & see how it feels. You can always change your editor later.

Here are a few things to look for:

  • What Ruby-related plugins are available to make things easier for you
  • Whether the editor is open-source or not
  • Built-in features that improve your productivity (like code snippets, auto-complete, clean design that doesn’t get in your way)

All of these editors support Windows, Linux & Mac.

Let’s get started!

Atom Editor

Atom is an open-source code editor from Github. It supports many programming languages including Ruby.

Pros:

  • Git integration
  • Good support for code snippets (time saver)
  • Allows you to run code directly in the editor (with plugins)

Cons:

  • Can be slow when opening really big files

VSCode Editor

VSCode is an open-source code editor from Microsoft & it’s based on the same GUI technology as Atom.

Pros:

  • Terminal integration
  • Debugger integration & other IDE-like features (needs language support via plugins)
  • Under active development

Cons:

  • Ruby language plugin doesn’t get many updates, but it works 🙂

RubyMine IDE

RubyMine is a closed-source code editor from JetBrains. It’s the most complete IDE in terms of features, but it’s also not free.

Pros:

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  • Refactoring support
  • Integration with testing frameworks, bundler, rake, terminal, etc.
  • Intelligent auto-completion

Cons:

  • Closed source
  • Can feel “heavy” in terms of performance & UI design

VIM Editor

VIM (VI iMproved) is an open-source editor that has been around for ages, the most striking characteristic is that it’s terminal based, unlike the other editors which are GUI-based. It has countless plugins that you can install to add new features.

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Pros:

  • Many keyboard shortcuts & plugins
  • You can do everything you need without leaving the terminal & without your mouse
  • Powerful editing features (delete inside quotes, regex replace, block selection, etc.)

Cons:

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  • Initial setup takes some time (.vimrc file & installing plugins)

Other Editors

While these four editors are what I think the most popular in the Ruby community, there are still others that are worth a mention.

Here’s the list:

  • Sublime Text
  • Emacs
  • Cloud9 (online editor)

Feel free to give these a try.

Personally, I use Atom for most of my Ruby development & writing, for quick edits (like configuration files) I use VIM.

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Summary

You have learned about a few Ruby editors that can make your work easier, which one are you going to pick?

Let me know in the comments 🙂

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Thanks for reading!