Business Services Industry

ActiveState Ships Komodo 3.5 with Full Ruby Support for Mac OS X; First Professional Ruby IDE for Developers

Business Wire, Nov 3, 2005

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- ActiveState, a leading provider of developer tools for dynamic languages, today released Komodo 3.5, the first professional integrated development environment (IDE) with full support for the Ruby programming language. ActiveState Komodo 3.5 offers developers an advanced workspace for programming in multiple languages, including Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl, and now Ruby. The launch also marks ActiveState's first Komodo release on the Mac OS X platform. Komodo 3.5 delivers Ruby features such as Ruby on Rails debugging, Mac OS X support, and multilingual input method editor (IME) support for non-Western languages.

"Until now, Ruby developers haven't had a professional IDE for writing and debugging their Ruby code," says Eric Promislow, ActiveState's Ruby Team Lead. "Adding Ruby to Komodo's list of must-have supported languages has been exciting during Ruby's recent growth and popularity. Ruby is an amazing language for building mainstream Web applications quickly with less code. I look forward to working with the community and helping Ruby continue to grow."

Unique Ruby programming features in ActiveState Komodo allow programmers to easily code, debug, and test Ruby programs fast. Komodo is the first professional IDE to offer Code Intelligence capabilities like AutoComplete and CallTips providing advanced as-you-type Ruby syntax checking. Komodo's Ruby code colorizing, folding, automatic end statements, and smart indenting keep Ruby programmers of all abilities on track for writing bug-free programs the first time. In addition, Komodo gives Ruby developers a fully integrated graphical debugger for testing Ruby programs with ease. Komodo's Ruby graphical debugger lets programmers visually set breakpoints, check functions, and edit classes.

In an industry first, ActiveState Komodo 3.5 makes it possible to debug Ruby on Rails (RoR) applications in a professional IDE. Ruby on Rails is the full-stack open source Web framework developed in Ruby. The RoR framework is getting noticed as an alternative to existing enterprise frameworks because it provides an easy path to application development. With RoR, Web developers are able to write applications faster with less code.

Adding Mac OS X support to Komodo 3.5 is an anticipated move for many multi-language developers. ActiveState recognizes that many businesses and programmers write code in many languages across multiple operating systems. Komodo 3.5 is a native port of the award-winning IDE to Mac OS X, Apple's increasingly popular developer platform. Komodo 3.5 runs on 10.4 Tiger and 10.3 Panther, delivering needed features to a programmer community starved of professional tools for dynamic languages.

"I am a Mac addict, and on Mac OS X I code with Komodo," says Irakli Nadareishvili, Senior Software Architect, Picktek. "I love Komodo's clean, integrated UI, the compact and usable project navigation bar, the ability to see code structure, support for CVS and Subversion, and I was able to create a macro five minutes after installation! I am delighted with the capabilities. Komodo is the best IDE for scripting languages."

Komodo 3.5 features new multilingual input method editor (IME) support for using a standard Western keyboard to enter international languages, such as French, German, Spanish, and Asian characters. Programmers building applications for an international audience can now use Komodo to enter localized code comments, error messages, and strings.

Pricing & Availability

Free trials of Komodo 3.5 for Mac OS X are available online at www.ActiveState.com/Komodo/. Komodo Professional costs $295, and Komodo Personal is $29.95. Existing Komodo 3.x customers qualify for free Komodo for Mac OS X licenses. Upgrade pricing for prior releases is $99.95 and $19.95, respectively. Komodo is offered at zero cost for classrooms and teachers through the ActiveState Education License Program at www.ActiveState.com/Education. Komodo 3.5 is shipping now on Mac OS X, and will be available later this year on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

About ActiveState

ActiveState is the leading provider of tools and services for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl. Over two million developers rely on ActiveState's cross-platform professional development tools, high-quality language distributions, and enterprise services. ActiveState Komodo, the professional IDE for dynamic languages, gives developers a powerful workspace for editing, debugging, and testing programs. Komodo supports Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl. Now available on Mac OS X.

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