[IainMackay85]

I have read about the benefits of Ruby on Rails, I would like to give it a go, I have eclipse installed that I use for Java Dev, I therefore decided to try RadRails thinking all I needed to do is install it and off I go, so I installed it, Ruby and mysql. However it doesn't work. I receive an error about '...gem install mysql' so I try this and still no luck, then I forget about RadRails and just run it from the command line, again I get an error about mysql.so that it can't find yet I follow its path and its there????

Anyways I give up with this setup as I've been at it for hours (>12) so maybe someone could tell me the best OS and IDE for developing ruby on rails (current OS is WIN7 )

Thanks in advance.

[MitkOK]

Mac OS X + Textmate.
Linux/Mac OS X + VIM ( rails.vim ) or Emacs ( rinari ).

I don't think it's a good idea to use IDE for Ruby/Rails development, but you can try NetBeans ( ruby version ) or RubyMine ( it's not free ).

Personally I don't think Windows is the right OS for developing Ruby. Any POSIX will do the job.
My choice is vim + plugins on CrunchBang Linux, which is Ubuntu based, but light and fast.
You can try on Windows E-texteditor or Intype, but I would recommend switching to any linux distro ( Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mint ).

This post has been edited by MitkOK: 16 August 2009 - 03:15 PM

[IainMackay85]

Thanks for the reply, I was expecting linux to be the preferred OS. Since I will need to freshly download whatever I'm going to use, if I could get some info for the best setup. My requirements would be mainly for a quick and simple install but providing a good working environment, ie synthax highlighting and auto completion are my favourite tools

Thanks again.

[MitkOK]

The easy setup is to install Ubuntu :

- in the repos of 8.04 is ruby 1.8.6 ( patch level 111 ) which is old
- in the repos of 8.10 is ruby 1.8.7, which is prefered by many for rails development
- in the repos of 9.04 is ruby 1.8.7

My preference is ruby 1.8.6 ( patch level 389 ) and rubygems compiled from source.

I also install vim, git, mysql and zsh, rails as a gem.

I use rails.vim and some configuration files - http://github.com/jf...les/tree/master

[GeneralCody]

IainMackay85, on 16 Aug, 2009 - 02:03 PM, said:

I have read about the benefits of Ruby on Rails, I would like to give it a go, I have eclipse installed that I use for Java Dev, I therefore decided to try RadRails thinking all I needed to do is install it and off I go, so I installed it, Ruby and mysql. However it doesn't work. I receive an error about '...gem install mysql' so I try this and still no luck, then I forget about RadRails and just run it from the command line, again I get an error about mysql.so that it can't find yet I follow its path and its there????

Anyways I give up with this setup as I've been at it for hours (>12) so maybe someone could tell me the best OS and IDE for developing ruby on rails (current OS is WIN7 )

Thanks in advance.

If we think of the origins of Ruby it is born on a Linux x32 platform.
I'd say the best development environment for ROR development is running a virtual machine (VirtualBox from Sun) with a Linux distribution with the JetBrains RubyMine application development tool. Then you install a pre configured ROR Web Server package with a database and all. Then you have both a development server running on the Linux virtual machine, that you can test against from the Windows/Mac os you use.

The nice thing is that you don't have to waste any resources on the OS you use on a daily basis, as all the heavy server apps and database apps are installed on the VM, and that is shut down in seconds, freeing up all resources.

Most professional developers I know does this. And, get a second screen! That is a real comfort bonus.


At least, that's what I'm using, and it works great.

[MitkOK]

Test against Win/Mac OS ? Really ? The thing is that rails apps are most commonly deployed on Linux distros or *BSD. Linux or Mac OS are perfect for the job.