# Abstract

Ruby has a fast-growing community which has not yet settled for one particular
editor/IDE and still has ongoing debates on that topic. It has not found a home
yet.

The ability to change one's surroundings and make it more confortable for daily
usage by implementing helpers appropriate to one's specific needs is crucial in
having this feeling of acquaintance and familiarity with a tool.

Unfortunately, the barrier of entry into Eclipse plug-in development for Ruby
users is still pretty high, as few are as skilled in Java as they are in Ruby.

This project aims to bridge that gap by allowing Eclipse plug-ins (or a subset
of the possible ones) to be develop entirely in Ruby.


# Synopsis
The idea for this project came from an IRC-talk with pombreda, zx and others
when I was trying to relate my participation in the Ruby community to the
Eclipse community. The idea is very simple: to build a bridge to allow Eclipse
plugins to be written in Ruby.


# Benefits to the community
This idea can actually bring huge benefits to both communities. The Ruby
community would find an easier way to customize a powerful platform like Eclipse
to its needs, without leaving its language of choice.

The Eclipse community would benefit from a flurry of new contributions from
rubyists excited with the lower entry barrier. And with more rubyists using
Eclipse regularly, more ideas and contributions tend to spring.


# Details of the project
I don't have many details about this project yet. I know that I'd need to take a
very good look into Eclipse-Shell (by murphee) and EclipseMonkey as they'd
probably make my life a lot easier.

It seems like Eclipse-Shell already allows for coding scripts from inside
Eclipse, including GUI. My work will probably be:

- smoothing out and extending its functionality (it is still quite
experimental); I'd have to talk to murphee about exactly what needs to be done
in this direction.

- fixing bugs and quirks, integrating it with the Eclipse Plug-in Development
framework in order to make the development and deployment process more uniform.

- provide extensive documentation, howtos, tutorials, screencasts, etc. in order
to attract the Ruby community to EPD. An early release would be nice to keep
both communities in the loop and start getting feedbacks and bug reports.

# Bio
I'm a 23 year-old Computer Engineering 4th-year student at UNICAMP (Universidade
Estadual de Campinas - Brazil). I have a solid ground on computing, although
don't have much experience with particular technologies. My coding writing so
far has been mostly academic.

I've been using free software since 2004, helping out and evangelizing where I
could, but never contributing code back (except for a tiny patch to JFreeChart
and some proofreading on the bn4r ruby gem).

I have industry experience in Java programming in a large project with many
geographically separated teams. It is vital for open source development that one
works well under these conditions.

In this work my main tool was Eclipse, so I am well acquainted with how it
works, at least from a user perspective.

I live in Brazil, so the American Summer is actually Winter here, and I'll be
taking classes at the university until the end of June. Until then I'll have
about 25hours/week to dedicate to the project. After that I'll be full time on
it. I currently have a part-time job that together with the University doesn't
leave me much time to do anything. But if I get the funding from Google I'll
quit that job to dedicate myself to the project.

If you have different slots separated *both*:

1. for experienced programmers who are already acquainted with your code base
and can implement difficult and needed tasks 

2. *and* for well-grounded, quick-learning but inexperienced programmers who
would use SoC as an entry gate into a fruitful and lasting relationship with
FLOSS development, 

I'm the second kind. That's why my project description is a bit vague. I haven't
gotten around to reading much code and documentation about the project yet. The
idea came all today during a jam-session at the #summer-discuss channel. But if
you're interested in funding this idea I can ramp up pretty fast and still
deliver something significant.

Thanks and have a good summer =)

P.S.: almost forgot: I have one other application, and that's to Ruby Central
Inc, on a different idea. For this one I'll get better guidance here.