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.
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:
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:
Cons:
VSCode is an open-source code editor from Microsoft & it’s based on the same GUI technology as Atom.
Pros:
Cons:
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:
Cons:
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.
Pros:
Cons:
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:
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.
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 🙂
Thanks for reading!