[LRUG] Ruby web basd debugger (was: lrug.org)

[Robert McGovern]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: benjohn at fysh.org <benjohn at fysh.org>
Date: Feb 21, 2006 8:47 AM
Subject: [LRUG] Ruby web basd debugger (was: lrug.org)
To: London Ruby Users Group <lrug at lists.spiritualexploration.net>


Richard Drake wrote about Wiki:

*snip*
> 2. able to execute and display Ruby code within pages as its own
> scripting language
> 3. easy to make references to Ruby code eg on local Mac will open
> something in standard library into Textmate at the right line number,
> at a cybercafe will find something sensible online
> 4. option to bring such references (blocks of Ruby) to show inline
*snip*

Vaguely on that subject, it seemed to me that using web 2 ideas, it
ought to be possible to build a web based debugger for Ruby.

I was imagining being able to include a single module in to my Ruby
program that would fire up a web brick, and let me connect to the
running program, start looking at it's objects in a "nice" way, and
interact with it (call methods, see their results, etc).

Why use a web browser, rather than have it text based? I think you can
present and interact with complex information more readily with the rich
controls of a browser. Why not use a GUI toolkit? Because browsers are
amazingly ubiquitous, and because you get remote debugging for free.

Has anyone come across such a beast? Does anyone think it would be
useful? Any thoughts on easy or hard? :) It doesn't _sound_ too hard.

Other neat directions:
  Integration with ruby documentation.
  Full IDE, completely integrated with debugger and documentation
functionality.

Cheers,
  Benjohn


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