May 13, 2007 9:01 PM PDT

CodeGear goes Ruby on Rails route

By Martin LaMonica
Staff Writer, CNET News

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Ruby on Rails is an open-source framework--an addition to the Ruby language--that has become a popular choice for building Web applications, particularly public-facing Web sites.

At a Ruby on Rails conference on Monday, CodeGear will show off an as-yet-unnamed tool that the company says will help make easier the development of high-end Rails applications, including corporate software.

That means providing developers with more "visibility" into the inner workings of an application under development, as well as the Rails framework itself, said Michael Swindell, vice president of products at CodeGear.

The move highlights the growing diversity among development languages.

Sun Microsystems last week announced JavaFX Script, a scripting language designed to complement the Java software installed on PCs and mobile phones.

And Microsoft earlier this month said it is building the Dynamic Languages Runtime, an extension to its .Net Framework that will allow developers to write with scripting languages including Ruby.

"What we're seeing with the increasing complexity of Java and the whole Java ecosystem is that a lot of Java shops have been asking for an 'easier Java than Java,'" Swindell said. "I think that's where a lot of the interest in Ruby on Rails is coming from."

CodeGear's tool will have an Eclipse IDE (integrated development environment) for visual programming. It will also allow people to use the command-line interface built into Ruby on Rails, Swindell said.

The company intends to have a private beta of the product this summer and release it for general availability in the fall.

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