Some sort of Virtual Programming Environment

[Arexxk]

I work with ruby and rails and hate constantly setting up rails on a local machine and having to go through the trouble of configuring it. I've literally spent more time setting up Rails, Rails revision tracking software, Git, and Heroku than I ever had actually coding with ruby on rails. Has anyone heard of some sort of virtual environment that has everything already set up, so all I have to do is access the virtual environment and start coding?

[metafour]

Vagrant might be what you're looking for. Vagrantup.com. It's essentially a scripting front-end to VirtualBox. You could also do a base install and then snapshot with either VMware or VirtualBox I believe.

What I normally do is use a cloud instance on Rackspace. Setup a base install and take a backup of it. I can then create new server instances from that backup.

[Arexxk]

It seem like I still have to set up a development environment within the VM. What makes this any different than installing a barebones Linux OS in VMware, setting up a dev environment within that, and backing up that image? I was sort of looking for a Virtual Environment that was already set up to handle rails, java, etc. with all those testing modules pre-installed. For some reason I always have issues configuring modules like RubyGems.

[metafour]

Some of the vagrant stuff might already have a dev environment setup. There's two ways to script it one uses cookbooks and there may be cookbooks setup that have what you need. But yeah these are all virtual machine solutions which is what I prefer because you can exactly mirror your production environment.

[keyboardlover]

If you can afford it, easiest thing might be to just find a good/cheap ruby on rails host. I don't have experience with one, but is it possible that they have rails setup software (something through cpanel) that installs your modules for you? Years ago I had a Java EE host that had that kind of setup.

That way you could easily set it up however you want and access it anywhere.

[hashbaz]

I don't know much of anything about this, but it looks interesting and along the lines of what you're describing:

http://kodingen.com

[metafour]

I don't know much of anything about this, but it looks interesting and along the lines of what you're describing:

http://kodingen.com

Their site doesn't respond well to the iPad. Doesn't scroll at all.

[Wildcard]

You could download a free pre built image from VMware. I can almost guarantee someone already has an image of some OS created for this purpose. Once you have a good base image you can export it and use it on different computers. Plus you can use shared online storage from within the guest OS, and retain snapshots in VMware.

[Wildcard]

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/

[flyball]

there's rvm but it just sounds like you need to learn how to use whatever package manager/installers your os has. you have to constantly install ruby on one machine? i dont get it.

[Wildcard]

there's rvm but it just sounds like you need to learn how to use whatever package manager/installers your os has. you have to constantly install ruby on one machine? i dont get it.

Sounded like they wanted a vm they could move around between several local machines.

[Wildcard]

Some of the vagrant stuff might already have a dev environment setup. There's two ways to script it one uses cookbooks and there may be cookbooks setup that have what you need. But yeah these are all virtual machine solutions which is what I prefer because you can exactly mirror your production environment.

Check this for example http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/cat/0?k=Ruby+on+rails&c=0

Part way down there is a "rails appliance" for development, based in ubuntu, free to download

[cheebs]

there's rvm but it just sounds like you need to learn how to use whatever package manager/installers your os has. you have to constantly install ruby on one machine? i dont get it.

Yes, I'm sure he's constantly installing ruby on the same machine, repeatedly, then posting his frustrations about doing so.  That sounds plausible.

OP : I would just do what others have said and build an image of some sort

[daerid]

OP : I would just do what others have said and build an image of some sort

Why not just configure a live usb, and carry it around with you?

[Arexxk]

Why not just configure a live usb, and carry it around with you?

This is a really cool idea. Im not sure if my school locks down their workstation BIOS, if not then this could work. I ve tried rvm, but it's a  hassle to work with as a beginning rails developer and gems doesnt really play well with OSX (rvm is a gem right?). I  just found railsinstaller, which actually prepackages everything you need to build a rails app and is going to work cross-platform. So, maybe a VM server + railsinstaller + dropbox? Imma try this out

[Arexxk]

I don't know much of anything about this, but it looks interesting and along the lines of what you're describing:

http://kodingen.com

This is wayy cool.

[kidchunks]

I heard http://railsplayground.com/ is a good host.