[FR-devel] FreeRIDE Synopsis [was Why Practical Ruby ?]

[Curt Hibbs]

Baptiste Lepilleur wrote:
>     I started looking at other project and found FreeRide (but failed to
> find the ML at that time). At a first glance, I concluded by
> 'ambitious but
> still in the stage of infancy': the only code in the CVS repository was
> (is?) the plug-in architecture. Activity seems slow too (PDF snapshot of
> Wiki not updated in more than a year, though it might be picking up given
> the number of recent sucribers), and while the plug-in
> architecture and the
> GUI framework are fairly explained, there is very little about other areas
> (live syntax error detection, refactoring, debugging...).

I fixed the date on the PDF file (it should have said 2002).

I'll try to give you an ultra-short history of FreeRIDE (dates are
approximate):

2001-11 Rich Kilmer and I had independently decided to implement a Ruby IDE.

2001-12 Rich and I discovered each other and merged our projects. The wiki
was set up and we began actively soliciting ideas and participation.

2002-01 Rich and I hammered out the core plugin and communications
architecture and Rich implemented it while I did some initial design work on
the GUI framework.

2002-02 Being unable to find a GUI toolkit that met all of our requirements
(mostly the combination of native widgets and internationalization was the
problem). Many of the FreeRIDE members took some time to participate heavily
in a fast moving discussion aimed at producing a new project for developing
a new GUI toolkit (this is the Rouge project, which many of us monitor, but
we are not devoting development time to it -- if it comes to fruition,
FreeRIDE may be a first user of it).

2002-03 With the plugin core in place, the onus was on me to completely the
initial GUI Framework, enabling the other FreeRIDE developer's to then join
in and build on this initial effort. This is where things slowed down as
events and circumstances took away most of my free time. The GUI Framework
development slowed to a crawl and everyone else was still waiting.

2002-04 Towards the end of the month I started working on the GUI Framework
again, and should have something to check in to CVS in a week or so.

All of the sub-projects that you mentioned in your other email are either in
planning, or placeholders for stuff we know that we want. Please feel free
to go in there and made your own contributions.

TIP: You can edit wiki pages offline, just copy the text out of the edit box
into your favorite text editor and save it locally. You can then edit it
offline and post it to the wiki later.

Curt