September 23, 2013

How I setup chruby

Update 8/13/2014: I updated the paths and the .zshenv script for latest version in homebrew

After having another battle with pow and rvm I thought I would give chruby a go. So my little experiment went something like this:

brew install chruby
brew install ruby-install
ruby-install ruby 1.9.3
ruby-install ruby 2.0

Then I load chruby in my .zshenv file.

if [[ -f /usr/local/opt/chruby/share/chruby/chruby.sh ]]; then
  source /usr/local/opt/chruby/share/chruby/chruby.sh
  source /usr/local/opt/chruby/share/chruby/auto.sh
else
  echo "Ain't got no chruby"
fi

Fun Fact: We want to use the .zshenv and not the .zshrc. This is because .zshrc is for interactive shell configuration, whereas .zshenv is always sourced.

This should have you up and running now, but I have added two other steps to my normal process.

Bundler

First of all, for bundler I now use the --path option when I am first installing the gems for a project.

bundle install --path ./vendor/bundle

You only have to use that option once per project then bundler will remember where you put things (check out .bundle/config for details). But this is essentially the same thing I used RVM’s awesome gemsets for in the past.

Pow

I use the hell out of the zero-conf web server pow. Now to configure the zero configure webserver I create a .powenv file in each of my projects that looks like this:

source /usr/local/opt/chruby/share/chruby/chruby.sh
chruby $(cat .ruby-version)

According to the pow folks .powrc file are for checking into source control, and .powenv are for local settings.


I am massivly grateful for RVM, and ruby wouldn’t be where it is today with out it. I love that project, and may go back to RVM. But for now I am seeing how a few lines of shell script can hold up. My only real complaint is having to use ruby-install or ruby-build or curl/tar/make when we already have homebrew.



🚀