I'd like to create a new InstantRails-type app for Rails developers who use Windows. It would be free & open-source of course.
Reasons:
Use nginx over Apache, especially
since the nginx guys are now
releasing original Windows versions.
Use the newest version of Rails.
I haven't developed a Windows app before. Could anyone please provide some general steps that I might look into to get something like this going?
For the most part InstantRails is just an encapsulation of all the software necessary to get things rolling -- Ruby, Rails, MySQL, Apache, and so on. There's no reason you can't package things up the same way; just look at how they do it. The only app you'd need to write is your equivalent of the manager, and if you're going to use a GPL-compatibile license, you could simply modify the InstantRails-Mgr.
Related
I'm trying to learn Ruby On Rails, and found I can't really use Ruby 2.2.2 because Nokogiri doesn't support it on Windows yet.
How do I roll back Ruby to an older version so I can develop on an older framework while I wait for Nokogiri to come up with a product for Windows and Ruby 2.2.2?
What is the best way to uninstall it so I don't have bits hanging around that might cause issues?
This is in response to my question: "Error installing "nokogiri" in a Ruby on Rails application?"
Linux users: please remember that not everyone is interested in switching their OS, running 2 machines, trying to figure out dual boot, or dealing with virtual machines dragging down a host. While Linux is a great environment for software development, people, like the OP, just looking to try their hand at something (like ruby/rails) should not immediately be told to switch to something completely unfamiliar which might not even adequately support their normal day to day activities.
Since I am not a believer in making anyone leave an environment they are comfortable with (especially since you stated "learning". Why would you want to make an additional investment just to try something out?) and because I did not want my comment to get over looked as it will help with your issue, I have decided to post this as an "answer".
Mac and Other *nix based OS's have the ability to install rvm (Yes I know there are more but rvm is my personal choice and a community favorite) which allows you to manage different versions of ruby on the same OS.
While rvm is not available for Windows there is a small application called uru which will get you as close from a windows standpoint.
Installing a version manager means that you do not need to uninstall or rollback anything you can simply install a new/old ruby version side by side the current versions you have and switch between them fairly easily from command line.
While uru does not have all the fancy features that other applications like rvm possess (by design). It contains the important ones (primarily in your case switching ruby versions). The CLI is very simple and straight forward. Examples of uru Usage
Also: Please note I work in an Windows centric Office and have developed more than a few fully functional rails applications on a windows machine. Yes there are some headaches when dealing with native extensions and know that you will always be slightly behind the leading edge for ruby and rails but it is completely possible and feasible to build enterprise level web applications completely in a Windows environment without ever installing Linux at all. (Note I do use dedicated Linux machines for non development web servers)
Go to your control panel and find the ruby or rails installer. Uninstall it. Go to your file explorer and make sure the folder is gone.
Now go to http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/ and pick an older version. Follow that process just like the first time you installed ruby. Then go get nokogiri and whatever other gems you like and enjoy.
I had the exact same issue when trying to some gems(stanford core nlp & treat) to work that relied on JVM that was 32bit instead of 64 like the version of ruby I was running so I reverted to 1.9.3.
I'm also in the avoiding moving to OSX or linux camp so I feel your pain man.
Let me know if this works and good luck!
I've been developing a web application and a lot of customers are asking if they can host the application in their network (for security reasons). I have been looking for a way to package up a rails app into a single executable (with server and all), but haven't been able to find anything. My other requirement is that we distribute it without the source. Because of that I was looking at JRuby and Warbler. The end product should run on linux or windows. Has anyone done anything like this before, or can anyone point me in the right direction.
Thanks
My best guess would be to use JRuby and the JRubyCompiler, although I have no idea if you could compile a whole rails project (including all the required gems). I got it to compile a small ruby script though. Anyway, if you succeed, you could package those in a jar or war and deploy that as a contained application.
It doesn't sound like you necessarily need to package it as an executable, as long as the code is obfuscated. I personally haven't needed to protect any of my code, but a quick google search returned this product http://rubyencoder.com/. I'm sure there are others out there, but the basic idea is that your code is unreadable and cannot be reverse engineered. This would allow you to run a standard rails environment without giving access to your source code.
If you have the budget and really want to outsource this, the Github guys partnered with BitRock to build their cross-platform installable product (Github Firewall Install). BitRock has this case study on their website.
I'm in the process of deploying a rails application to Windows machines. I do all of my development with OS X and Linux, but the final app will actually run on Windows machines.
That said, my client is looking for an all-in-one Apache(I had to talk him out of IIS)+Rails+Application deployment/installer. He wants to hand all of his (Windows-based) clients an install CD for their respective servers (they all want their own setup).
Is there anything like this in existence? I realize Capistrano exists but that requires a great deal of setup on the hosts (especially for Windows) beforehand and it's not very feasible in this particular case.
In the past I've used InnoSetup (http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php) for creating installers, but I'm not sure that's going to work in this case.
If you guys have any input, suggestions, or highly persuasive client techniques (to talk them all out of Windows =P) it would be most appreciated.
Best.
Try with RubyStack:
BitNami RubyStack is an installer that greatly simplifies the installation of Ruby on Rails and its runtime dependencies. It includes ready-to-run versions of Ruby, Rails, MySQL and Subversion as well as a number of third-party libraries like FiveRuns TuneUp. RubyStack is distributed for free under the Apache 2.0 license and has been packaged using BitRock's multiplatform installer.
http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack
I'd look into using jruby with glassfish. Make sure the users have java and it should be good to go.
RubyStack is the closest thing to what you're after, although you might need to tailer the install a bit and remove some unwanted baggage. I don't know of any other Windows projects for a production environment (InstantRails is designed for development).
Maybe you can make InstantRails meet your needs.
Ruby and thus Ruby on Rails is a fairly notorious deployment on Windows even in the best of circumstances, moreso when the setup is out or your hands like that. I don't mean to admonish, but this definitely speaks to matching development and deployment enviroment (I once ran into similar problems when I found out that the Java enviroment we were deploying to was a good half-a-decade out of date).
As I don't have enough Ruby-on-Windows experience to fairly weigh in on the matter, I'd say either LiveCD's or CygWin deployments may be worth looking at (Always good to broaden people's view on alternate Operating Systems, right?).
Have you considered building a single version that runs in a VM?
For this particular problem, I'd go with a traditional Windows installer package like NSIS.
When I had a client with a Windows-only IT department, though, I found they were much more amenable to an XServer than a linux server. I don't generally think of OS X as a server OS, but it actually worked really well. I tried for linux first, and when they shot it down, I suggested OS X and they jumped at it.
It helped, I think, that they already supported some Mac laptops.
Good luck!
As other posters have suggested, RubyStack should be a good option. It is free and you can always use it to run your own 'post install' scripts to customize it for what you want. If you want a supported stack or addition/modifications to RubyStack you can get commercial support from BitRock We have done so for several Rails based companies that wanted a local version, including for the guys over at GitHub
I got myself a new 8 gig USB key and I'm looking for a decent solution to have a portable RoR environment to learn on. I did the google on it and found a few possibilities, but I'm curious to hear some real life experiences and opinions. Thanks!
I like InstantRails, very easy to use, no installer, and does not modify your system environment.
InstantRails was replaced by [BitNami RubyStack] in 2007.
http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack
How to create a portable environment based on RubyInstaller's binaries and Development kit:
http://hcettech.blogspot.pt/2012/05/windows-portable-rails-development.html
Related: Portable Ruby on Rails environment for Windows
Setting up a portable install of Cygwin would be a good choice.
You'll have a full *nix environment which would give you endless possibilities. You could easily have Ruby, Rails, Mongrel (or whatever server of choice) as well as a really good editor at your disposal as well. I would recommend VIM with this Rails specific VIM configuration (fantastic looks and feel!).
I currently have a similar setup running Cygwin off a jump drive. I use it mostly for the bash shell, VIM, and using tail to monitor development log files with its nicely color coded syntax.
I found this, and I intend to give it a go this evening:
Flash Rails
Assuming you're on Windows, I'd go for Instant Rails and Netbeans (with a JVM for Netbeans).
Netbeans is a bit heavy-weight, but it supports lots of nice rails focused IDE features and is the best IDE for Rails on Windows IMO.
You'll get all of that on a lot less than 1 gig.
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What do you think is the best set-up for RoR in a Win Vista environment? I've tried the radrails eclipse plug-in, and it just seemed too bulky for me, I've also started to just use Textpad and the command line, but I'm used to having somewhat of an IDE to work with.
I don't know about "best", because that's a subjective question, but I can tell you what setup I use and recommend:
Editor: E Text Editor
TextMate seems to be the editor of choice for Rails on Mac. E Text Editor is essentially TextMate for Windows. Its bundles are broadly compatible with TextMate's including the Rails 2 bundle which is included with the basic install.
Alternatively, if you're into the whole Visual Studio ecosystem, then Ruby in Steel PE might be a better bet. It's a really nice all-in-one package that actually comes with (a stripped-down version of) Visual Studio now.
Environment: VirtualBox running Ubuntu Server
Deploying a Rails app can be a pain at the best of times; deploying a Rails app from a Windows environment onto a *nix server is even worse. Plus, running Rails apps on Windows is slow. Running your tests is slow. So I use VirtualBox to host a VM on my Windows machine that mirrors my target deployment environment as closely as possible. In my case I run Ubuntu Server because there are a really nice set of step-by-step tutorials for getting up-and-running with a full Ubuntu-based Rails stack on the SliceHost wiki.
Here are the benefits of developing using a VM:
I map a network drive to the VM so that I can edit the code on it directly from Windows using E Text Editor. The VM acts and feels just like a command line window. So you don't feel like you're in a completely alien environment.
It runs Rails and other Ruby scripts (like tests) faster than running it natively in Windows
Everything is contained and snapshottable, so I can experiment and generally play around without worrying about breaking anything. If something does break, I just roll back to a previous good state.
It uses hardly any RAM. It will typically use less that 100MB (it's currently using ~43MB, but I don't have a Rails app spun-up). Contrast this with, say, Firefox which will typically be hogging >200MB and you realize that running a Linux-based VM like this is amazingly efficient.
I can move my environment between machines
I have much more robust deployment workflow
I can limit the VM to have exactly the same amount of RAM as the server I'll be hosting on. E.g., if I'm to be using a SliceHost 256MB slice, I would limit the RAM to 256MB.
I can build a seperate environment for different hosts. If I wanted to host on Joyent, for example, I could build an Open Solaris VM
Gems and other binaries won't need recompiling for your target environment
It's "a good thing"™ to get to grips with the environment your Rails app is likely to be running on. Seeing as most, if not all, commercial Rails hosts run some sort of *nix derivative, you're going to want to be comfortable with the *nix environment.
e-texteditor seems to be growing as the editor of choice for rails development on ruby. Too bad it isn't free.
Aside from that, the RailsOnWindows guide works fine. And Sqlite is by far your best choice for development: RailsWithSqlite
NetBeans is definitely recommended if you like IDEs. It has a lot of Ruby features and there's a Ruby only download.
There probably isn't a definitive "right" answer - it's going to depend on how you like to develop.
However, it's interesting to note that most of the "name" Rails folk seem to use Textmate on their Macs. So a fairly powerful editor rather than an IDE. I suspect this is at least in part because of the fairly strong TDD bias within the Rails community - not so much debugging being necessary because they're working in small test-driven steps. That's the theory anyway.
The closest analog to Textmate in Windows seems to be e. It costs, but a fairly trivial amount (pocket-money, if we're honest). There's a 30-day free evaluation available too.
I've used Scite for much of my Ruby/Rails work, don't discard it just because it's the "default" - there's a reason why it was chosen for inclusion.
As for IDEs, I couldn't get anything to work in Eclipse, NetBeans seems quite good and I tried the beta of Sapphire in Steel, also pretty slick. I just don't seem to want to work in an IDE; the opposite of how I feel about working in C#, strangely enough.
Are you just looking for an IDE, or a full stack (IDE, source control, database, web server)?
If just an IDE, I would recommend NetBeans or RadRails. Both have syntax highlighting, code help, support for Rails projects, code completion, and basically everything else you would expect to find in a full-featured IDE. Both are also completely free. Of course, both suffer from the "bulky" problem that you identify.
If a full stack, I would recommend Subversion, MySql, and Mongrel. These three are all very simple and well-supported in Windows.
Seconded for e-texteditor. I use it daily and it's great (although not without it's share of BUGS).
For the rails side of things though, I'd actually suggest a virtual machine running linux.
Ubuntu works well, the only caveat is that you have to install rubygems manually, as it does not adhere to the great debian filesystem naming ideology :-(
I suggest this because if you want to do "advanced" things, such as installing ImageMagick/RMagick, or memcached, or a number of other plugins which require native C libraries, it becomes very painful very quickly if you're on windows.
A second reason is that unless you are very atypical, your production server will likely be running linux too. It's good practice to have your development environment match your deployment environment as closely as possible, to help you find and fix bugs earlier and more easily, and avoid fixing bugs that won't affect your production site (like windows specific ones)
Microsoft Virtual PC and VMWare both have free options, which work well, and are plenty fast, so this is not a problem.
Instant Rails is a good way to get started quick.
I can verify that it works well on Vista.
I suggest you install Ruby first.
Then install Rails.
Then download Aptana and install it.
After that you can install RadRails from Aptana's start page.
Please refer to "Aptana Radrails: An Ide for Rails Development" published by Packt publishing when using RadRails.
You might want to take a look at this:
http://www.sapphiresteel.com/
There's a free personal edition too
(Updated: Assuming that you already have Visual Studio Full Fat Edition)
I am one of the contributors to Rubystack is a free, all-in-one installer for Windows that installs Apache, MySQL, Ruby, Rails and all other third-party libraries typically used on a development environment (such as Imagemagick). You may want to give it a try
RubyMine 3-4 + (RubyInstaller, DevKit for building gems, Postgres, msys git)
works perfect for me on Windows 7 as a development platform.
Well, except the problem that ruby is very SLOW with rails on windows.