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The Best Environment for Rails on Windows
on January 13, 2009
Update 04/27/09: I made some updates that you can read about here
So you’re willing to start on Ruby on Rails. You’re not from neither Linux nor Mac worlds. What’s the best development environment for you?
Before starting out, ignore some of what’ve already read elsewhere: it is not necessary to use full blown IDEs such as Netbeans or Aptana. You can, but you don’t need to. You can also ignore one-size-fits-all bloated installers such as Instant Rails (sorry, I don’t mean to bash as I know people made lots of effort to assemble them). Let’s install a clean environment from scratch for Windows.
I am translating the original article I wrote in Portuguese just yesterday as people seem to have liked it. To answer some questions people posted in the comments, first, I have nothing against the efforts in Java IDEs, per se. I think they are great if you really, really need to use them or perhaps you have to split your time doing Java and Ruby development at the same time. The same goes for Windows: some Railers would say that you need to give up on Windows completely and simply go to Ubuntu or Mac OS X. I know for a fact that there are lots of people simply unable to do just that. And “give up their jobs” – as some kindly suggest – is not an option. Some of the people that are starting Rails in closed-minded companies are exactly the seeds those companies need to start to change their minds and every time we, Railers, tell them to just move to another job, we are killing a precious opportunity to introduce Rails to those companies.
So, if you need an IDE to start on Rails, please feel free to try Netbeans or Aptana, they are both reasonably good. But if you have no particular reason to do so but your own previous knowledge, so please try this new one. It is absolutely necessary to change, to learn new tools and open yourself important new possibilities that will just increase your great skills. Learning Rails, learning Vim, learning to not be afraid of the command line is not like condemning everything you did in the past. You were not wrong by using Visual Studio and doing C#. Now you’re just adding up to your previous knowledge and this will make you a greater programmer.
As I always say, a professional that is master in just one thing, is an amateur in all the other things.
Needed System Components
First of all, download the One-Click Ruby Installer. This is the official Ruby installer for Windows and the result of the great job Luis Lavena and his friends have been doing for some time now. Ruby on Windows has very little cooperation from both Microsoft and the open source community so it is amazing that it is still going on and I want to use this moment to ask you: if you can help, please do. Well, after downloading, just double-click on it and follow the wizard. Use the default options.
Railers use Git, therefore download msysGit. Again, follow the wizard steps. But, in one of the screens you’ll see 3 radio buttons explaining about PATH, just choose the red last option. And in the SSH part, leave the default OpenSSH option.
To start your learning SQLite3 will do (you can use MySQL or PostgreSQL later). Download this zip file, uncompress it and copy the sqlite3.exe file to c:\Windows. Then download this other zip file, uncompress it and copy the sqlite3.dll file to c:\Windows\System32. Disclaimer: yes, I am aware that it is not considered ‘good practice’ to put stuff in the system folders. I just wanted this to be easy for newcomers. But if you know how to set up a folder at Program Files and add it to the PATH variable environment, that’s the way to go.
To use gVim with the plugins I will talk about, you will need to download Exuberant CTags. Uncompress it and copy the ctags.exe file to c:\Windows.
Now, we need a decent text editor, so just download gVim. In the installer, pay attention to the screens. You will find one with many check boxes, most of them checked. One of the unchecked one tells about creating a .bat file to allow execution through the command line, just check it on. Answering Luis, yes, fortunatelly this version of gVim already comes pre-compiled with the necessary Ruby bindings, so you don’t need to do anything else, just install it.
If you have Office 11 or Visual Studio you probably already have the Consolas type set. If not, download from here because we´re going to use it to make gVim look better.
Personalizing your Command Prompt Console
msysGit comes with a weird default on which it will try to convert unix line breaks (\n) into Windows style (\r\n), which is obviously a bad choice. So edit “c:\Program Files\Git\etc\gitconfig” and replace “autocrlf = true” for “autocrlf = false”.
I like to customize my console, because the default one is just plain ugly and a nice looking environment is key for a comfortable programming routine. Type in Windows Key+R to open up the “Run” dialog box and type in “cmd”. This should open the command prompt console. On the upper left icon, there is a Property menu item. Click it and then configure like this:
- On the “Options” Tab, mark the “Quick Edit” option
- On the “Font” Tab, choose “Lucida Console” with 14pt size
- On the “Layout” Tab, choose (in Screen Buffer Size) Width 90, Height 1200, and choose (in Window Size) Width 90, Height 40
- On the “Colors” Tab, select “Screen Text” and then choose the White color on the right side edge of the color palette.
When you click OK, on Windows XP, it will ask if you want to change just the current window or apply them globally. Choose the global option. On Windows 7 it will save it globally automatically. Do the same thing on the Git Bash console window (this icon will be in your Desktop once you install msysGit). In this case, you need to right-click it and choose “Run as Administrator” if you’re running over Windows 7 (and possibly on Vista). This should leave a better looking console window.
You can also follow Luis´ recommendation and download Console2 (download the beta devel build instead of the older 1.5 version). This is a great Command Prompt replacement that has tabs!
Installing some Ruby Gems
Now, you will still have your console opened, so let’s use it to install some gems. Type in these commands:
1 2 3 |
gem install rails ruby-debug capistrano rspec ZenTest webrat image_science mini_magick mechanize RedCloth fastercsv piston sashimi ruport json newgem open4 rubigen --no-ri --no-rdoc gem install sqlite3-ruby --no-ri --no-rdoc --version=1.2.3 --platform=mswin32 gem install mongrel mongrel_service mysql ruby-postgres oniguruma ultraviolet libxml-ruby --no-ri --no-rdoc --platform=mswin32 |
You will also need an specific version of the ImageMagick for Windows. After downloading and uncompressing the file, open up another console and type this in (without pressing Enter after it and with an extra space after ‘install’):
1 |
cd |
Then, from the Windows Explorer window, drag and drop the folder containing rmagick-2.7.1-x86-mswin32.gem file right into the Console window. You will end up having a command line like this:
1 |
cd C:\Users\akitaonrails\Documents\Downloads\RMagick-2.7.1-ImageMagick-6.4.5-3-Q8\ |
Then just do:
1 |
gem install rmagick-2.7.1-x86-mswin32.gem |
On the same folder you should have an installer called ImageMagick-6.4.5-3-Q8-windows-dll.exe. Double click it to start the installer and just follow the wizard with the default settings. This kind of thing is somewhat necessary for a few Gems on Windows. In the Ruby world, “Gems” are reusable libraries. Some of them contain native extensions written in C – for performance or reusability reasons. The problem is: Windows doesn’t come built in with decent compilers such as gcc. Therefore it is necessary to download specific versions of those gems, with the extensions already pre-compiled into DLLs. ImageMagick is one of them, but there are a few others. For some gems, sometimes it is enough to just use the “—platform=mswin32” option while running the “gem” command. You will need to experiment. Luis also have a msys compiler project going on, but it is not ready yet for prime time.
Configuring gVim for Rails
With your Console still open, you’re probably inside your “home” directory. On Windows XP it will be “c:\Documents and Settings\your-username” and on Windows 7 and Vista it should be “c:\Users\your-user”. From there you will have to type in the following command:
1 |
git clone git://github.com/akitaonrails/vimfiles.git |
Then do (copy, paste and execute one line at a time in the console):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 |
cd %HOME%\vimfiles vim after\plugin\snippets.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x!" vim plugin\fuzzyfinder_textmate.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x!" vim vimrc +":%s/desert/vibrantink/g" +":x!" vim vimrc +":%s/monaco/Consolas:h12/g" +":x!" vim vimrc +":%s/<c-f>/<c-t>/g" +":x!" copy /y vimrc ..\_vimrc |
Ok, you now have everything you need to start. Watch my screencast about Rails on Vim to understand a little bit more and then research on Vim tutorials. I think the vimbook should help.
Follow my Github fork of scrooloose’s vimfiles project.
Why not another IDE?
Before I forget you will also need the Firefox web browser and the good old Firebug extension to help you out on Javascript, CSS development.
You need to throw away old preconceptions. Specially if you excessivelly developed using monumental IDEs such as Eclipse and Visual Studio. You will feel intimidated by the Console and you will understimate editors such as Vim. You won’t have visually appealling dialog boxes, wizards. Understand this: old visual environments are ineffective and unproductive. The first time you have a Regular Expression saving your day, you’ll start to understand it.
Another thing: forget features such as auto-complete in Ruby. It simply doesn’t work. This is not a ‘defect’ on the IDEs or on the language. Ruby being dynamic means that it is impossible to actually figure out its methods and properties without having them running. Auto-complete is static editors are only good for static languages, where the interface never changes. The only true dynamic editor that can actually infer the objects proper behavior is Squeak. So, unless you have the objects running, you won’t be able to have auto-complete. There are several heuristics, but they are very ineffective and will just get in your way with tons of options that mean nothing. This is not a drawback: languages such as Ruby and frameworks such as Rails simply won’t make you need it.
You only need auto-complete on monumental languages. You can simply memorize simple constructs. That’s one of beauties of using Ruby and Rails, or even other dynamic platforms such as Python. Writing visual dialog boxes to wrap up a simple command line is also a big waste of time. You create visual stuff for really complicated stuff. For simple commands, use the console itself! If you rely on visual dialog boxes and the underneath command line is upgraded to new versions, the screens will simply break and you won’t know what’s the problem, because you will not be aware of the command line.
Try to make yourself comfortable with the command line. This is key to proper Rails development.
More References
For quick API reference, bookmark the APIDock website. And to know more about how Rails works, read the entire Rails Guides.
You will need more material, but if you’re still new into programming, start with Chris Pine’s free online book Learn to Program (pt-BR translation). If you already program, then learn Ruby through the classic and free Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (pt-BR translation). Finally, understand the Agile and Pragmatic philosophy on which the Rails community is build reading Getting Real (pt-BR translation). And if you want to learn it through an online course, then follow RubyLearning.org from Satish Talim.
This should be enough to start. Then get used to follow the Rails world through news websites such as the RailsEnvy Podcast. Read Peter Cooper’s websites such as Ruby Inside and Ruby Flow. And, of course, the official Rails webblog: Riding Rails.
To learn even more, buy Geoffrey Grosenbach’s Peepcode high quality and comprehensive screencasts. Don’t leave Ryan Bates’ video podcasts, Railscasts out of your list as well.
You will also need to learn Git and Scott Chacon’s Git Community Book is a great place to get started. Almost all Rails related open source projects are under Git repositories under both Github or Gitorious.
First Steps
We’ve just configured a state-of-the-art and efficient Ruby on Rails development environment. You won’t need much more than that. Vim is a very versatile, light and powerful editor although its learning curve is kind of steep. But if you’re able to overcome the first few days, you will be very comfortable with it in no time.
Rails, Ruby, Git, Vim. If you’re a C#, Visual Studio or Java, Eclipse developer, this new environment will be very challenging. But the journey is very worthwhile. You will finally step up from the coder level to the true developer level. No one said it will be easy, but if you’re able to do so, you will certainly acquire a brand new set of skills that are above the market average.
The first week will be the worst one. After that everything should start to flow better. I would say that in 6 months you will be very comfortable with this new environment.
Hello!
A great write up. Thank you for this.
Maybe one note. I tend to agree with you with regards to using IDE.
IDE is just a tool – like VIM or Emacs. It is not about single feature like intellisense or debugging. It is about a way in which you doing your work, about effectivity while you coding. And I think IDEs for Ruby/Rails get better over the time (on Windows look at RubyInSteel) or look at NetBeans Ruby support or at RubyMine from JetBrains.
Try, for example, compare debugging ruby programs with ruby-debug and with graphical integrated debugger in RubyMine or RubyInSteel…
just my .02$
thanks, Slavo.
maybe two more comments.
One, if you are using Windows7 beta1 – then be aware about possible problems with msysGit (see for example http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2009/01/git-on-windows-7.html).
Second, is there somewhere on web, write up how to install Ruby environment by hand without using One-Click ruby installer? For example if I like to use other/newest Ruby version than is in the package. It would be great if you can write how to install ruby/rake/gems/... – simply all needed things on Windows cleanly – by hand – without needing One-click installer.
thanks, Slavo.
Slavof:
You can check the One-Click Installer sources, they have a few instructions how to get started and bootstrap the environment:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller
Or you can take a look to build yourself from source with MinGW
http://www.github.com/luislavena/rubyinstaller
Very good article. One thing: I had to install json_pure gem because json gem installation could not complete.
The Console2 application (http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/) is a useful Command Prompt replacement that allows for multi-tabbed consoles.
Great post Fabio!
This is almost the same process I’ve used when setting up a Ruby/Rails development environment in Windows.
I would suggest to people, if you have some extra cash, to take a look at the E Text Editor ( http://www.e-texteditor.com/ ) . It’s as close to “Textmate on Windows” as you can get, and well worth the price tag.
Great Post Fabio, and thanks for the note about Ruby Installer!
Console2 (the beta, not the stable) is one of the best console replacements you could get.
Also, all the details for Vim are really good.
@Mike: E-TextEditor is cool, but the need of cygwin on the back to get all the TextMate scripts working is a downside for me.
@Steph: Send the gem developer to rake-compiler:
http://github.com/luislavena/rake-compiler
They will find instructions there on how easy is build gems for Windows.
I think eventually one day auto complete for ruby will work. I think the process will be something close to what slime does for lisp in that it runs a server process in the background and queries it for the possible completions.
@Luis: if you looking for TextMate replacement on Windows, then you may look on Intype (www.intype.info). Development is progressing very slowly, it is not a free product (is still in pre-RTM stage) but it is maybe nicest programming editor i saw and use yet.
thanks, Slavo.
Hi Akita,
Great job as always…
Would like to emphasise this:
“Some of the people that are starting Rails in closed-minded companies are exactly the seeds those companies need to start to change their minds and every time we, Railers, tell them to just move to another job, we are killing a precious opportunity to introduce Rails to those companies.”
That is my point. We can never throw way 90% of market share.
Hi, I think one of the key issues of Ruby on Windows is the performance, it seems 3X~5X faster when you run test units under *nix System than Windows.
I’ll try this guide. Thanks for the article. I’m using netbeans on windows, with Monaco font. Netbeans doesn’t have any special highlighter for activerecord methods. MinGW version Ruby is faster than VC version, but mongrel has failed to run correctly, so i edited little parts of mongrel code to something like this RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin|mingw/, but it get stalled when i opened rails_info. I have dual-booted pc with winxp and ubuntu installed, and still considering to migrate to single-booted *nix box, to keep things DRY.
One thing about the sqlite3 files is that they only have to be on the PATH, so if you don’t fancy fscking about in the Windows and system32 folder just change the PATH envvar to include the sqlite3 folder
Good article. I would recommend you add one of the (free) “tail” utilities to the list of needed software. Windows does not have one installed by default and you need to look at the server output all the time while developing in Rails.
@slavof
I wrote up a document for the Rails wiki explaining how to install Ruby and Rails on Windows from source code, without any dependency on Cygwin or msys:
http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/RailsOnWindowsFromSource
+1 to Slavo for Intype.
I really like what I see so far. Its really simple like scite, but but actually has a fixed width font! what a great idea!
Also has shortcuts and bundles just like textmate.
I’m sorry, but all this “copy to Windows\System32” just seems wrong to me.
SQLite has nothing to do in the Windows folders. Windows 7 is not Windows 3.11.
/gustav
Thanks for the guide, will pass it along to my colleagues still stuck in Windows.
A couple of notes/issues:
I get this error on startup after running the suggested commands. Might try it again later and try to replicate.
E492: Not an editor command: vimfilesfiles: set fdm=marker:
I also got an error until I installed: gem install—source=gems.github.com jamis-fuzzy_file_finder
Also typing ‘vim’ doesn’t look right, the text doesn’t show up until you hit enter (it looks great if you type ‘gvim’)
I’ll second Mike’s recommendation of “E Text Editor”. I’ve used EditPlus for over 10 years, but “E” is more suited to Rails development, if only for the project tree pane. EditPlus has a “Directory Window”, but it’s old-school and fail, really. Never got much use out of it.
“E” also supports the “Railscasts” TextMate theme, which is pretty nice as well.
You’re right about the IDEs. I tried Aptana RadRails, NetBeans 6.5, IntelliJ/RubyMine and they were all extreme overkill, for me.
The only thing I would add is a mention of HAML. Might be beyond the scope of this post, but you gotta love HAML. It should be the default template engine for Rails 3, I swear… It’s /that/ awesome.
Using Komodo IDE. It beats out everything I tried and is not bloated.
+1 for E Text Editor. Worth paying 20 USD for it !
re Scite: you can get fixed fonts by selecting “Options…Global Options”, which opens SciTEGlobal.properties. Find this part:
and start changing font names. That file, with ruby.properties (further down the Options menu) gives a lot of control.
ImageMagick and RMagick were for me more trouble than they were worth. I installed them to play with Gruff charting, but they were horribly unstable and alternative charting options are everywhere now.
And another +1 for Console 2 over here. Tabbed consoles and improved clipboard support – amazing how much they make life better.
I like Netbeans rails development, mostly because I can choose to use jRuby if I want, which is isolated from my main ruby installation. It also helps me out with the auto-completion and explanation of the commands as I am just starting with rails
Great article! I’m installing Rails on my Windows machine as I type this.
Can anyone tell me if there’s anything I need to do differently in my Vista 64-bit environment?
e.g., installing the sqlite3 gem:
gem install sqlite3-ruby—no-ri—no-rdoc—version=1.2.3—platform=mswin32
Nice article for people of south asia, i am from bangladesh. really liked ur views and process. But i used slax for rails development. In slax the syntax coloring and fuzzy finder isn’t working. in my windows can’t use fuzzyfinder. It is not initiated when vim loads it found some problem with fuzzyfinder plugin.
help needed
Let me add a vote for E Text Editor too.
@Luis, as long as Cygwin is not included in the Windows path, I find that it doesn’t interefere with the rest of Windows at all. It just all works as a nicely self-contained package. You don’t even notice it being there. What’s more, you don’t HAVE to use Cygwin either – you can use languages native to Windows, including Ruby, Perl, Python, PowerShell or even batch files.
Great article; an inclusive welcoming attitude is so important. When listening to stuff like the Rails Envy and they snarkily shout, “get a f**king Mac”, it can be a bit downheartening and alienating (they’re young and brash, though, and so there is time yet for them to learn to be a bit more friendly and respectful).
One thing that should be pointed out to new users coming to Ruby on Windows for the first time is the problem with rubygems and Windows binaries. I wrote about it on StackOverflow a while ago and it still remains a major problem:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/134581/gem-update-on-windows-is-it-broken
Most notably this affects the SQLite gem. So, although installing the SQLite gem will work when you install it as you instruct, subsequently issuing a “gem update” command will NOT work; it will bomb-out when it comes to update the SQLite gem. Effectively, “gem update” on Windows is badly broken. There is a very hacky way around this problem which I have posted as the accepted answer on the StackOverflow thread.
@AkitaonRails: Man thank you very much for this article. I am a windows user and there is no doubt that Windows Rails users need to help out with the community. Thanks for the intro to vim (i read about it at the Bucks blog a month ago), as well as the zip for sqlite3. I have been having lots of problems with sqlite so i just used SQL. Haven’t had any problems with SQL so far.
Yes i would say 6 months would be an ample learning time to get completely used to the environment. I am using netbeans and its slow and bloated, but it does the job however. Vim seems much faster, and intimidating. Having said that its just about getting used to the environment (whichever one you choose to that is!)
@Slavo: Thanks for the heads up on RubyinSteel.
@Charles Roper: I’m no expert but going with the MQSQL gem and adapter has worked for me.
@Ahad: The problem isn’t with SQLite per se, it’s with Rubygems, specifically the “update” command. Here’s the problem:
The SQLite-ruby gem is currently at version 1.2.4 BUT, there is no Windows binary for this version, which is why you have to force the installation of version 1.2.3 on Windows as Akita points out. Fine, it works well. However, when you run “gem update” to update your gems, rubygems sees that version 1.2.4 is the latest and tries to update it. Because there is no binary for Windows, rubygems tries to compile from source. This fails and causes rubygems to quit, thus preventing all other gems from updating.
This is also the case with any other gem whose latest version doesn’t have a Windows binary (like Event Machine).
Charles: Point noted..thanks.
I installed a fresh copy of the One Click Installer on a work PC yesterday and I was reminded of an issue that I thought I would mention here.
We, as do many others working on Windows in a ‘corporate’ environment, have to negotiate our way through proxy with NTLM authentication (in our case, an ISA proxy). This causes gems, or anything else that uses NET::HTTP, to fail unless you are able authenticae with the proxy. Thankfully Justin Bailey has developed the RubySSPI gem that supports NTLM Negotiate authentication over HTTP to proxy servers. What’s more, there a patch file that you can run (in the gem’s bin directory) that will patch NET::HTTP so that NTLM negotiation happens transparently. I’ve found it works perfectly.
http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubysspi/
Instructions for use are in the README.txt
Many many thanx AkitaonRails. I make all steps and have nice result. I like you style ))
E – Text Editor
“As I always say, a professional that is master in just one thing, is an amateur in all the other things.”
Is it good or bad? If bad, are you good in everything?
for me in terms of free editors, I suppose netbeans is all right. make sure you have enough RAM [uses about 500MB]
Great article. Only problem, the snippets folder is empty! I found that out when I ran the command:
vim after\plugin\snippets.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x!"
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I am on Windows Vista.
None of the following commands worked for me:
vim after\plugin\snippets.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x!"
vim plugin\fuzzyfinder_textmate.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x!"
vim vimrc +":%s/desert/vibrantink/g" +":x!"
vim vimrc +":%s/monaco/Consolas:h12/g" +":x!"
vim vimrc +":%s/<c-f>/<c-t>/g" +":x!"
copy /y vimrc ..\_vimrc
They just kept giving me errors. Let me know if you could help. I am on Windows Vista.
NetBeans can do proper autocompletion for Rails for example. And vim is anything but decent.
Just one question; what is the best way to update?
Just: http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/getting-started/updating/windows
Or any other tricks available?
Thanks
I downloaded the 1.9.1 zip, set up a Ruby_home variable and added a %Ruby_home%\bin to my PATH.
Then tried to install the gems. Got a DLL error but found solution here:
http://alwaysthecritic.typepad.com/atc/2009/03/install-ruby-191-on-windows.html
Otherwise almost no problems with the guide, except I had to use right-click properties on the Git batch icon to setup the font, colors etc.
I also tried adding the libmx.dll, from http://www.dlldll.com/getdll/3055.html but still getting the same error :(
I will now try using the latest one-click installer from github:
http://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/tree/master
Found 1.9.1 Install solution here.
Note: Be sure to do all the RENAMES mentioned!
http://blog.orangecabin.com/2009/05/install-ruby-1-9-on-windows-using-zip-binary/
Finally :)
PS: Someone should post a zip with all the needed dlls bundled...
I get the following error for each of the Vim commands. Do I need to be in administrator mode in the console to do these steps?
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim plugin\fuzzyfinder_textmate.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x
!"
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim vimrc +":%s/desert/vibrantink/g" +":x!"
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim vimrc +":%s/monaco/Consolas:h12/g" +":x!"
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim vimrc +":%s/<c-f>/<c-t>/g" +":x!"
CSApprox needs gui support - not loading.
See :help |csapprox-+gui| for possible workarounds.
Error detected while processing C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles\after\plugin\snippets.vim:
line 8:
E484: Can't open file C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles\snippets\support_functions.vim
Press ENTER or type command to continue
I get the following error for each of the Vim commands. Do I need to be in administrator mode in the console to do these steps?
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim plugin\fuzzyfinder_textmate.vim +":%s/.vim/vimfiles/g" +":x
!"
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim vimrc +":%s/desert/vibrantink/g" +":x!"
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim vimrc +":%s/monaco/Consolas:h12/g" +":x!"
C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles>vim vimrc +":%s/<c-f>/<c-t>/g" +":x!"
CSApprox needs gui support - not loading.
See :help |csapprox-+gui| for possible workarounds.
Error detected while processing C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles\after\plugin\snippets.vim:
line 8:
E484: Can't open file C:\Users\kristian\vimfiles\snippets\support_functions.vim
Press ENTER or type command to continue
Your are being too harsh on IDEs. Eclipse, for example, is a very powerful tool for Java development, and the only "unproductive" feature is its editor. This can be remedied eg. by installing a vi plugin, or by running 'eclim'.
Many Rails developers would use an IDE as powerful as Eclipse if there was one for Ruby development and forget Textmate/Vim. We could use much better tools for refactoring and smart autocompletion. Of course you are right that such functionality is very hard to provide with dynamic languages such as Ruby, Python and JavaScript -- but that doesn't mean it can't (or doesn't need to) be done.
"We can't have it so we don't need it" is a common reaction among the Ruby crowd with regards to language tools, and I think it's quite an immature and backwards attitude.
Ruby (MRI) has severe performance issues under Windows and this can hamper development by slowing down your test suite (as somebody has already pointed out). Probably using jRuby instead (which does support Rails just fine) is better.
Unfortunately Windows is not a good platform to use if you use a lot of software that was clearly written with a Unix background (Git, Ruby, Apache...). I don't think it's a productive platform anyway for development unless you develop Win32 software and/or are living inside an IDE such as Eclipse.
For that reason, the advice to web developers to ditch Windows and familiarize themselves with a Unix environment is not bad advice. If your employer does not allow you to install Linux on your machine, use VMWare or some other Linux environment for Windows.
GEM INSTALL RAILS
does not work for me. I always get the message "http://gems.rubyforge.org/ does not appear to be a repository". I refuse locating and installing all the gems by hand, I wonder if you guys know a better repository.
http://rails-installer.sourceforge.net/
Now, I only noticed it today that the screen at the top of this page is actually taken in some sort of VM on Mac. What a subtile joke! Great post anyway. I just cannot get gVim display polish fonts in drop down menus.
C:\>cd ruby
C:\Ruby>gem -v
1.3.5
C:\Ruby>ruby -v
ruby 1.9.1p243 (2009-07-16 revision 24175) [i386-mingw32]
C:\Ruby>gem install rails
ERROR: While executing gem … (Errno::EACCES)
Permission denied – C:/Users/administratör/.gem
C:\Ruby>
Any idea why? (perolof at gmail dot com)
http://bytes.com/topic/ruby/answers/747582-problems-running-gem-install-rails
"I just had the same issue on Vista. When running things via the command line, you need to run them as administrator even if your account is an administrative account.
When expecting to install things via the command line, just to goto the Vista Start Search Edit box, type 'cmd' and instead of hitting 'enter', hit cntr+shift+enter to launch it with admin privaliges. "
It works!!
Per-Olof
Thanks!