Ask HN: First time Mac - Which editor is the best for RoR?

2 points·fawyd··5 comments

I am a first time Mac user (Mac Book Pro with Retina). Because of my Ruby on Rails (RoR) project I switched from Windows to Mac. Now I like to know which editor is the best for Mac to develop RoR projects (used Aptana Studio 3 till now). Does anyone can help me out with some advices?

KR, Fabian

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A lot of people still use Textmate, although I recommend sticking with the 1.x versions.

Some use Sublime Text 2.

Some use vim + NERDTree + a bunch of other Rails-oriented modules.

If you're looking for something more IDE, check out RubyMine: http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/

I agree with tnorthcutt. Micheal Hartl has used Sublime Text 2 in his tutorial and he has a very positive feedback on it. It is a free one and you can buy it for less than 50 dollars if you do not want to be annoyed by the software asking to buy it every once in a while when saving a document. I also have been using the plugin for Sublime Text 2 developed by Ryan Bates and could not be happier.

1. Understand that this loaded question will yield a lot of opinions and recommendations base on what others perceive is best rather than what is best for you. Like most things in life, everybody is different and the best tool for you may not be the right tool for someone else.

2. Having said that, I would recommend checking out Sublime Text 2 if you want a starting point recommendation.

Michael Hartl, author of the Rails Tutorial books/screencasts, uses Sublime Text 2. It seems to be the most popular editor, which will make it easier to find out how to use it well. That's been my experience, having just switched from Windows to Mac.

Sublime Text 2 is all the rage these days. Highly recommended.

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