Wayne Vucenic
11/11/2004 6:14:00 PM
I've been programming in Ruby for 3 years, and using ArachnoRuby for
about 6 months. I do contract programming, mostly in C++, but of
course I use Ruby as much as I can. Before ArachnoRuby, I was
severely limited in how much I could use Ruby professionally. I was
trying to use Ruby scripts to make changes to a code base of 5,000,000
(I'm quite serious!) lines of C++ code. At times the scripts would
run for about 30 minutes and then crash. If I was running outside the
debugger, I'd just get a stack trace and find myself back at the
command prompt. I tried running the script in the Ruby debugger, but
that slowed the script down too much. (I didn't benchmark it, but it
_felt_ like a factor of 10 slowdown.) I couldn't wait 5 hours to get
back to the point of failure.
I tried tracking down the problem outside the debugger: putting in
lots of print statements, etc. At times I'd spend literally an hour
or two tracking down the problem this way. Invariably, it would only
take a minute to fix the problem once I'd determined what the problem
was. Since I get paid by the hour, I simply couldn't justify billing
my client for spending a few hours tracking down a problem which would
have only taken a few minutes to fix if I'd had a better development
environment.
So, very reluctantly, I severely cut back on using Ruby for paid work.
I limited myself to small scripts that I knew I could easily debug if
necessary.
Then I discovered ArachnoRuby. It uses a different approach to
debugging Ruby, which is much faster than the usual way. This meant I
could once again write any Ruby script I wanted, and be confident of
being able to debug it.
For me, using ArachnoRuby has literally meant money in the bank. I
have been able to do paid work with ArachnoRuby which I would not have
been able to do without it.
I like a lot of things about ArachnoRuby besides the debugger. But
this post is already getting long, so let me just mention one more:
I've just started doing Web development with Ruby. ArachnoRuby
installs its own private copy of Apache, which it automatically starts
and stops when running a Ruby script. While running Apache you can
easily debug Ruby code: set breakpoints, single step, etc. It may be
possible to set something like this up without using ArachnoRuby, but
ArachnoRuby provides it with no additional setup.
(Of course, I have no financial or other relationship with
Scriptolutions (the company that makes ArachnoRuby) other than being a
_very_ happy user/beta tester.)
Wayne Vucenic
No Bugs Software
"Ruby and C++ Contract Programming in Silicon Valley"
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:58:29 +0900, itsme213 <itsme213@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Any Arachno IDE users out there? Do you mind sharing your opinion of the
> product and how much you have used it? Private email is fine too.
>
> Thanks!
>
>