RailsInstaller.

I am just starting to learn Ruby on Rails, the web development software and tools. I started with Michael Hartl’s book Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Web Development with Rails, Second ed. This is supposed to be the #1 book on the subject – I sure hope the subsequent chapters are better than the installation chapter!

His book walks the newbie through the torturous process of setting up Ruby, Rails, Git, and Heroku access by downloading, installing and configuring every component (more than those listed here). The only word for the install is “torture” as many others have commented about it online. Perhaps another might be “stupid”. A lot of stuff didn’t work and required frequent digging online and finding everyone else having the same problems as we all battled through the installation process.

A far simpler way is to go to RailsInstaller.org and download and run the all-in-one installer.

I spent hours yesterday undergoing the Ruby on Rails installation on Mac OS X (equivalent to a root canal without pain killer) from his book. Finally got the first_app demo to load and run off of Heroku. Only to find that when I went to the second app, the Mac OS X installation no longer worked. Hours later, I discovered the online RailsInstaller – gave up on Mac, went over to my Windows desktop and had Ruby on Rails on Heroku up and running in 15-20 minutes.

Word of advice: Use RailsInstaller – ignore Hartl’s installation instructions.

Update: Chapter 2 onward is going much better 🙂

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