Flotsam & Jetsam

Ruby and Ruby on Rails is all the rage these days. As a dev environment, it’s one of the most simple I’ve ever worked with.

1. Ruby –
   Install latest Ruby one-click installer for Windows from http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller/
   Include Ruby Gems.
   Up to you on installing the editor.
   Once you’ve installed Ruby, type this at the command line
   ruby -vyou should see the latest version returned. Mine is ruby 1.8.6 .

   If you see “Command not found”, make sure that you reload the command (close & open new) window after the install.

2. Update gems. Type this at the command line
   gem update –system
3. If you encounter a HTTP Error 403 trying to install Gems, here’s a workaround:download the latest gems from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126 (I used 1.3.1)
   unzip / untar the file
   cd rubygems-1.3.1
   ruby setup.rb

   Then do at the command line to bring it up to date:
   gem update –system

4. Now, install Rails. Type at the command line:
   gem install rails  –include-dependencies
   
5. Install a database. For learning and dev work, sqllite is a good choice. You can upgrade to MySQL later if you wish.
   Get the latest version from here: http://www.sqlite.org/download.html.
   You’ll need the command line application zip and the DLL zip.
   Download, extract and install to your Ruby bin directory.To test that everything is working well type at the command line:
   sqlite3

   You should see a response that says something like: “SQLite version 3.6.16? and give you a prompt. Type ctrl-c or ctrl-break to exit.

6. Install the sqlite3 gem. Type at the command line:
   gem install sqlite3-ruby

Voila!  Done.  Now you can start coding in Ruby using your favorite text editor.

gem install rails --include-dependencies