Arthur Gouveia

Quick intro on how to setup your Ruby environment and start rolling out some red goodness.

RVM: WTF is it and WTH am I going to do with it?

Well, RVM stands for Ruby Version Manager. The name is pretty self explanatory, but it is basically a tool that will allow you to install several Ruby versions on your computer and use different versions for different purposes, at your will. It will allow you to work in different projects that use different Ruby versions easily and also create a set of Gems for each project, preventing you from having one single Ruby install with a ton of gems from your 21857 unfinished pet projects.

Note: I’m not going to be covering RVM setup on Windows. If you’re doing Web Development on Windows, refer to here, here or here. Thanks.

Installing RVM

I’ll be assuming you’re reading this because you already have at least one version of Ruby on your computer and that you have curl up and running. You simply run this in your preferred Terminal/Console application:

curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable

This will install the latest stable release of RVM on your computer. If you’re not running as root, it should be installed in your home directory ~/.rvm

Messing up with RVM

Now that you have RVM installed, you need to install Ruby versions. Want rvm to list the known versions? Suppa hard:

rvm list known

Ask RVM for the requirements to install the version by typing:

rvm requirements

Install a Ruby version:

rvm install 1.9.3

Upgrading previously installed Rubies to newest versions:

rvm upgrade ruby-1.9.3-p120 ruby-1.9.3-p194

Listing the current installed Rubies:

rvm list

Changing Ruby versions:

rvm 1.9.3
rvm 1.8.7

Organizing your environment

Assuming you’ve been doing some Ruby/Rails work for a while and that some of the projects you’ve been working on have different Ruby versions and each one has different Gems (& versions) for it to run nicely, we will setup your environment so that when you cd into your project, RVM will automatically switch to the desired Ruby version and to a specific Gemset.

Gemsets & Organization

Gemsets are, well, sets of gems. What it does for you is packing up all the gems you installed in a structure that RVM knows how to manage and switch whenever you need it.

If you have three projects in your computer and each one uses a different gem set but they are all running on the same Ruby version, here’s what you should do (Terminal/Console):

rvm 1.9.3
rvm gemset create groupBuyingInnovativeIdea

Note: you can name your gemsets whatever you want. Does not need to be the name of your project

Once you did that, you will have three different gemsets to work on your client’s awesome ideas. Now you want to switch to a specific one because you know what you’ll be working with

cd dev/groupBuyingInnovativeIdea
rvm 1.9.3@groupBuyingInnovativeIdea

With this you’ll be running Ruby 1.9.3 and on the Gemset groupBuyingInnovativeIdea. Now you can run your bundle install and have all your gems installed only for this project. Repeat the procedure for the other projects to keep yourself organized and your environment clean.

To know what Gemset you’re using, type:

rvm gemset name

Make it simpler with .rvmrc

This is a file that RVM will generate for you if you want and what it does is automagically switching to a Ruby version with a specific Gemset you defined for that directory it was created in!

cd dev/groupBuyingInnovativeIdea
rvm \-\-rvmrc \-\-create 1.9.3@groupBuyingInnovativeIdea

Now you cd outside of this directory and cd inside of it again. You should be prompted if you want to use this rvm. Just answer yes and TADA! You will be running the desired Ruby version with the desired Gemset right after you cd on the directory

I hope you guys liked it and that it makes everything a bit easier on a day to day basis.