Hi Everyone,
I’ll try to make my opening summary as short as possible. I work as a
hobbyist in web development (using Dreamweaver CS4, Photoshop CS4, PHP,
Swishmax2(flash)). My dominant sites are all on “linux/unix” boxes but
I program on a Windows Vista machine. I program for fun with C++,
Autoit, Actionscript, and PHP for the most part. My background is that
I’ve been in the IT industry for more than 16 years and I’m an extreme
troubleshooter but I’m also a Windows System A… That
basically means I’m a jack of all trades where windows is concerned
because I’ve seen a lot of things over the years as I dabble a lot.
I have a photographic memory with a logical foundation set within.
Therefore, I learn a lot faster than most people because I can retain
information like a sponge to water.
I have a lot of time available (in-between job searches right now) so I
decided to spend my time wisely. About one week ago, I decided to push
into Ruby with the idea that I’ll eventually get into Ruby on Rails.
I’ve researched it and it’s the route I want to go.
Anyhoo, I do not use linux and am not very familiar with linux. Some
folks say it’s not hard to use Ruby on windows and it’s come a long way
so I started pulling in some research materials. Here’s what I’ve
accomplished in one week so far:
I read my first ruby book (Beginning Ruby - From Novice to Professional)
by Peter C…
I installed Ruby using the one-click-installer
I learned how to install and use gems.
I learned the difficulty with installing gems that needed
–platform=mswin32
I created my first program from scratch (an html parser I called
scraper.rb) which pulls statistics off a website and stores it in yaml.
I was instantly thrilled with the concept of classes, methods, even
happy with how interpolation worked with variables. I thought to myself
this is going to be great! I can design a class based app that can
become modular as I build it and not suffer through past programming
experiences.
I was just about to get into RoR when I thought to myself it might be
better to go with the latest ruby. So, I managed to upgrade my ruby to
1.9.1. I ordered another book from O’Reilly which is supposed to help
with transitions from 1.8 - 1.9. I found out there were a lot of issues
upgrading, namely with how a lot of the gems I used to be able to use no
longer worked.
The biggest issues I face now are using mysql on windows and also that
my DBs online are 5.1. Keep in mind the online DBs are in fact on a
linux/unix box and not on a windows but I do my programming on a windows
box. Make sense? I hope so. It’s just a convenience for me because
I’m more fluent with windows.
However, now I cannot get mysql to work. I did work through a lot of
websearches and found the best install fix for me was something like:
gem install kwatch-mysql-ruby --platform=mswin32
–source=http://gems.github.com/
However, when I tried to install it, I get the following error:
*** ERROR: can’t find mysql client library.
*** extconf.rb failed ***
I use mysql 5.1 on my windows machine and use Wampserver as my original
development server/platform.
So, I’m a little frustrated but I know I can get through this. And, I
don’t want to give up on Ruby at all. So, my questions are as follows:
-
What would you recommend I do concerning developing on a windows box
when my websites are located on linux/unix. Is it doable? Do I have to
make a lot of adjustments? -
If I had to go to linux to use RoR effectively, how steep is the
learning curve going to be and what would I need to do to ensure that I
can dual-boot on both vista and linux where appropriate? -
What other suggestions can you give me to help improve my transition
to ruby on rails (things that you might have encountered and learned
from) -
Is it worth it to stick with RoR as a native windows user or should
I be thinking about something else.
I apologize for the very long post but I needed to start with a wide
audience to retrieve the best answers. Many thanks to any who read and
respond accordingly.
J.D.