Since its latest release, Sun's NetBeans IDE has been transformed from a Java-mostly tool to a multi-language, enterprise development environment. The second beta version of NetBeans 6, released yesterday, contains many improvements in NetBeans' Ruby support. In an interview with Artima, Sun NetBeans evangelist Gregg Sporar noted that:

Another exciting features is that we're expanding the languages officially supported in NetBeans. Last October, we released NetBeans 5.5, and one of the new features there was support for folks doing C and C++ development. So for a while now NetBeans has been more than just for Java developers. In the 6.0 release, we're adding some support for JavaScript, and we're also adding some very interesting support for Ruby. Not just Ruby the language, but specifically, for the Ruby on Rails framework. A lot of people in the Ruby world are very fired up about that.

Ruby support is leveraging some of the smarter editor infrastructure we've got. For example, the editor is smart about finding all instances of variables in the source file you're editing. This is not just a look at the actual characters in the variable, but is semantically smart about the code. The Ruby editor also provides in-place rename refactoring, smart indentation, and nice hints that allow you to create your code faster. That's going to be a value to anyone in the Ruby world. Also, we have a very nice integration with the Ruby debugger. There is also an integrated gem manager built into the IDE, letting you see what gems you have and allowing you to download new ones.

Notable Ruby-related enhancements in beta 2 include:

• RHTML support revamped such that most of the Ruby editing functions work properly: Quick fixes, bracket completion and matching
• Improved code completion and go to declaration reliability
• Instant Rename
• Smart indent
• Comment/Uncomment
• Improved code completion
• Active Record Completion
• Overridden methods are shown in bold, inherited methods in plain fonts
• Ctrl-dragging over methods and classes pops up their documentation as a tooltip (on OSX, use the Command key instead)
• Optional plugins available
• RSpec code templates and test execution

Other NetBeans 6, Beta 3 enhancements include those to the database explorer and the bundled Woodstock JSF framework.