Thanks for the offer benigeri! I'll hit you up later...
thinkful.com sounds like a great resource.
shail: There were way too many problems to list here. Basically, the pattern I was falling into was as follows: I'd start a new project, start setting everything up, run into problems, fix them, run into more problems, fix them, etc... I'd have problems with everything from running bundle successfully, to deploying successfully. Then I'd get to the point where nothing would work and I'd eventually start over. Very frustrating.
The suggestions here are giving me hope and renewed enthusiasm. I'll check back later...
I bet it's possible to do all this stuff under Windows natively too, but it's probably going to be harder to find help. So if you have some familiarity with UNIX-like OSes already, I'd suggest just using something like Ubuntu in a VM.
Anyways, keep going, pain is temporary :)
Off topic: there is a small and hard to notice "reply" link below every comment.
If you want to develop on Linux without buying another machine, you could (at least for now) download VirtualBox and install Linux on it. That will let you run Linux from within Windows.
But we have had success on both OS X and Linux machines.
The trick is to 1) install rbenv or rvm, 2) build the right version of ruby, 3) install the right gems, 4) make sure your PATH is set up properly.
The rails consultancy thoughtbot has a script you can run to just magically set up a new laptop for rails development. I don't do this (too magical, and too little control), but I usually pull up the script[1] just to remind myself of what things I need to attend to and install.
Feel free to hit me up at my email address in my profile if you're stumped on something. I've probably seen most issues by now...
Download the git installer and run it.
Install homebrew using their script.
brew install rbenv
brew install ruby-build
Once that is done you'll need to copy some stuff in your shell profile. It will tell you the two lines. Restart your shell.
Here's the first trick. You need openssl:
brew install open-ssl
(make sure "qmake" is now available or restart shell and see)
To see ruby versions: rbenv install -l
I installed 2.0.0-rc2: rbenv install 2.0.0-rc2
Almost there! Set it as your global ruby
rbenv global 2.0.0-rc2
Make sure this outputs the right ruby version now: ruby -v
Now install bundler and rails!
gem install bundler
gem install rails
I probably missed a step or two, but I just ran through that process and had a few bumps in the road as usual myself.
I'd suggest doing
rbenv install 2.0.0-p247
rbenv global 2.0.0-p247
brew install opensslGood luck :)
I'd recommend going through his tutorial rather briefly first. Like a skim. Then read through http://guides.rubyonrails.org/. Then go through is tutorial one more time. Then try building your website, while using Railscasts and StackOverflow for help.
See http://fast-reaches-9399.herokuapp.com/how-to-learn-to-progr... for more information. Good luck!
there are a bunch of github projects that you can get that has everything to setup a VDI- this one seems popular: https://github.com/amaia/rails-starter-box
there's also a railscast about it: http://railscasts.com/episodes/292-virtual-machines-with-vag...
Really, check it out if you're having difficulty getting your environment set up. Here's a link to get started https://www.nitrous.io/join/BiSdgSxLjIk (full disclosure: it's a referral link that will get me No2 credits).
And when you're ready to deploy, just use Heroku. Good luck and keep at it!
2. Here's a volunteer hotline to call for help: http://rails.pockethotline.com/
Not only will you learn things by trying to help, but you'll demonstrate value as a community member which will improve the quality of the help you receive as well.
A linux desktop is entirely unnecessary. But so is Heroku.
This "just deploy to Heroku" mentality is really starting to get on my nerves.
Heroku is a great product that solves real problems for a certain class of project (and user). It is not, in any way, shape or form, the solution to every problem. Stop telling people it is.
if you need to get a rails app hosted NOW, it's as simple as
heroku create appname
git push heroku masterI also had a lot of initial difficulty setting up my environments, but I've gotten a lot better at it now.
If you'd like, send me an email benigeri@stanford.edu and I can try to help you and point you to good resources. It's a little hard to suggest anything right now since I don't have any context.
So send me an email and I'll try to help you as much as I can, pro-bono.
https://github.com/rails-oceania/roro/wiki/Available-mentors
http://www.reddit.com/r/rails/
http://installfest.railsbridge.org/installfest/ (Railsbridge is a fantastic organization, if you emailed i bet they would help
I've been going thru same thing, my MBP hard drive died, so i installed RVM, bundler, and rails 3.2 on a couple ubuntu 12.04 laptops while i'm waiting for my Snow leopard install DVD. The key insight is to write down every step if you have to back out. And read 2 or 3 blogs and see what they agree on before starting install. These are good for 12.04
http://excid3.com/blog/setting-up-ubuntu-12-04-with-ruby-1-9...
http://footyntech.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/installing-ruby-r...
Installing a nice Ubuntu 13.04 desktop is not complex, there a video which explains installing Virtualbox and Ubuntu under ten minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WiiswmOH1Q ... note that a desktop is not required but given your background you would feel more comfortable having a desktop, graphical text editor (eg. gEdit or Sublime Text) and one or more terminals to run the commands.
Another option would be to install Cygwin, an Unix-like environment for Windows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRB9t2tSsjY and continue the tutorial from there.
Honestly, I think that if you have sysadmin skills, it's likely you'll have some Unix exposure, and if you don't have yet, learning Ubuntu and Linux will be a benefit on the long run.
Its Ubuntu under the hood, but has a windows like UI.
I almost gave up on Rails because I was using windows; life is easier as a rails developer with Linux or a Mac.
However, I'm just starting to work on a webapp for a client (learning from scratch, this is my first big project in Rails), and I was wondering which version to start with. Since I'm starting with no pre-existing codebase, it's very tempting to go with Rails 4.0 as opposed to 3.2, but I'm afraid not all essential gems support it yet. Also, there probably isn't as much information for bugs and problems etc.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
http://ruby.railstutorial.org/help
If you don't find your answer from either the debugging tips or a Google search, try writing your question on StackOverflow. Most of the issues you face are probably solvable by knowing what line of your error to search for.
Best of luck!
RVM is the nº1 source of problem in Ruby envs.
The cause of problems for beginners is quite simply "change". Rails has been through a few major revisions now, and the jump from 2 to 3 dropped a lot of people (even though 3.1.x+ has been fine), and I doubt many will drop again from 3 to 4, even though there are some big changes. The problem is that with all of the changes comes a bunch of now inaccurate information that no one will update that is found easily, some with high point rankings in S.O.
The more important problem to fix though is leadership. DHH has done a great job, but either he or someone else needs to be more vocal as a single voice leading Rails. It is led by committee currently, and it shows in the lack of vision. However, despite its problems, I'm in it for the long haul. I like it a lot better than everything else.
PS: I have not used thinkful before.
I guess you would not have to pay to get directions. One-on-one help might need payment.