MacOS Ruby Setup (Basic)

As some might know, Ruby and Ruby and Rails comes pre-installed in Leopard (a.k.a. MacOS 10.5.x). However, the out-of-the-box experience is semi-incomplete. Here are the quick steps to polish off a fresh Leopard install so you can get back to writing Ruby code. Simply open a terminal window and execute the first four commands listed in the sequence below:

1. sudo gem update --system - This updates the entire gem system to the latest version. It is important that you do this first before anything else.
2. sudo gem update - This will update all of your currently installed gems to their latest versions.
3. sudo gem install ruby-debug - If you want to make use of the interactive debugger then you’ll need this gem. If you need further instruction, then let Railscasts show you how.
4. sudo gem install rspec-rails - This will install RSpec as your testing framework. Note that by installing the rspec-rails gem it will automatically install the required rspec gem as well. Feel free to substitute this step with Shoulda or whatever testing framework you like using the most.
5. Download and install Git - Most have switched to Git, you should too. Especially if you want to easily download and install Rails plug-ins or other open source code.

There are, of course, many other gems that can be configured to make you more productive but the items listed above are enough to quickly get you started. For a more comprehensive view of what you can do, check out my Ruby page.

Tags: Ruby

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