Sake is a RubyGem by Chris Wanstrath which executes and manages system-wide Rake tasks. Whereas Rake is project-specific, Sake allows the developer to examine, install, run, and uninstall Rake files and tasks globally, much like the way Rubygems does this for Ruby libraries.

Sake files are for the most part just regular Rake files:

namespace :db do
desc “Returns the current schema version”
task :version => :environment do
puts “Current version: ” +
ActiveRecord::Migrator.current_version.to_s
end
end

desc “Show specs when testing”
task :spec do
ENV['TESTOPTS'] = ‘–runner=s’
Rake::Task[:test].invoke
end

Installing a task is easy:

$ sake -i err.rake spec
# Installing task `spec’
$ sake -T
sake spec # Show specs when testing

You can combine Sake global tasks and project-specific Rake tasks, as Sake picks them up automatically. Read More

Aptana IDE has been since inception targeted to Ajax developers and power web designers, with advanced features such as JavaScript debugging and built-in searchable reference manuals for many web standards (in addition to JavaScript, DOM, CSS, and HTML, it also bundles documentation for several Ajax libraries including Scriptaculous.)

With the merge of RadRails into Aptana, the Aptana+RadRails bundled IDE now supports Ruby syntax highlighting, debugging, code completion, and support for Rails-specific tasks like defining WEBrick and Mongrel servers. Although the project is still in beta, it is already very usable for daily use.

Alternatives: EasyEclipse for Ruby on Rails, which is very easy to install (bundles the Java runtime) has RadRails built-in and you can enhance it using the Aptana plug-in. Read More