Hello people. I’m just getting into cutting my teeth in ROR
development. Currently all my machines are Windows 7 machines. I know
most of the hard core ROR in general use Macs. I definitely won’t be
able to use a mac. Would you recommending using an ubuntu machine or
is a windows machine good enough to get started with ROR Development?
On 1 August 2010 06:16, ncage [email protected] wrote:
is a windows machine good enough to get started with ROR Development?
Honestly, without trying to be contentious: no.
You can get along getting into Rails using Windows (I started that
way with InstantRails), but you will discover occasional things that
don’t work quite how you expect, especially when you get to using
lots of third-party plugins/gems. You will probably be better off,
going straight into a *nix environment of some description.
The easiest solution is to use a VM (either install your own, or use
the out-of-the-box VirtualRails [1] for an all-in-one solution, or the
TurnkeyLinux Rails Server [2], either of which you can then customise
to your heart’s content).
But if you want to make the leap to Ubuntu as a desktop OS it does cut
out the hypervising midle-man 
[1] http://www.virtualrails.org/
[2] Ruby on Rails | TurnKey GNU/Linux
I was developing in windows for a long time but it had many constrains
and problems. The best advice is of Michael P., to use a machine
similar to the server that you will do the deployment. I can’t give up
windows so I installed a ubuntu 10.04 server edition in a virtual
machine and it is working like a charm. I have a local server on
ubuntu with all the advantages, samba to use the files like windows
files and I check the site as I would in any other site from my
windows machine without any problem.
I use Windows Vista for a lot of my RoR development as it’s convenient
for me with my current setup even though I run an Ubuntu box as well.
Not everything works in windows, as you might expect, but 95% of it
does. This is with a regular ruby install, no instant rails- which is
out of date.
You will learn quite a bit using windows. Some of the stuff you learn
- how to trouble shoot malfunctioning gems for example - will be
invaluable to you later on.
If you have some major computer horsepower you can go the virtual
route, but it might be better to dual boot linux.
My advice is to try installing ruby and rails in win 7 first. Take
notes and blog about it.