Ruby Link For Visual Studio Launches
First released as public beta in April, Ruby in Steel is a Visual Studio plug-in that offers an assortment of tools for working with Ruby, the dynamic, object-oriented scripting language that's enjoying a renaissance in popularity. The open-source Ruby on Rails framework has given new life to the decade-old programming language, making it a popular choice for building Web applications.
Ruby in Steel is intended to let Visual Studio users work with Ruby in their preferred IDE. Version 1.0, released Monday, is the first major milestone in a development road map that already includes detailed plans for a "final" version, 1.5, slated for release toward the end of this year.
Ruby in Steel comes in two versions: a free personal edition available online for download and a developer edition priced at $199 per user license. The developer edition sports a faster debugger and IntelliSense code-completion functionality. Ruby in Steel requires Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition or above, in conjunction with Service Pack 2.
The software is the work of SapphireSteel Software, a Hartland, U.K.-based company formed last year to create and sell Ruby tools.