--- title: 2009 Rubyist's Guide To A Mac OS X Development Environment teaser: tags: web,ruby,vim,osx author: Dan Croak published_on: 2009-03-30 --- *Update: A better approach is detailed in [Laptop Setup for an Awesome Development Environment][laptop].* [laptop]: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/laptop-setup-for-an-awesome-development-environment My hard drive kicked the bucket recently. From scratch, here's how I quickly got my Ruby web development environment into ship-shape form The thoughtbot Way. Many of these instructions are specific to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Some of them are opinionated (Vim over Textmate). Pick-and-choose what you need but this is **everything** that I use happily day-to-day right now. I chose the quickest, easiest approach to installing everything. I'm not an operating system whiz. I want a fun, powerful, working environment for developing Rails apps. The community moves fast so this won't be current for long. I give 75% of it a shelf-life of a year. ## Git Simple. [Download the installer](http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/) and run it. Lots of important gems we use in Rails apps are on github so let's add it to our gem sources: sudo gem source -a http://gems.github.com Maybe the best part about git is its branching capabilities. One particularly awesome gem that **makes branching easier** is: sudo gem install webmat-git_remote_branch That gets you stuff like: grb create branch_name [origin_server] Create a new local branch as well as a corresponding remote branch based on the branch you currently have checked out. Track the new remote branch. Checkout the new branch. ## SSH ### Public key I need a public key to get access to private github repositories. ssh-keygen Hit enter over and over until it's done doing its thing. ### Forwarding Occasionally I need SSH forwarding. This adds my key to the OS X keychain. Set it and forget it. /usr/bin/ssh-add -K ### Aliases You've got a few servers. Open up `~/.ssh/config` and create some aliases for servers you want to be able to quickly ssh into: Host nytimes_staging HostName staging.nytimes.com User developer Host nytimes_production HostName nytimes.com User developer ## thoughtbot/dotfiles We've written previously about [configuring vim](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/thoughtbot-is-filled-with-vim-and-vigor) and [configuring irb and script/console](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/irb-script-console-tips). We maintain an excellent [set of configurations](http://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles) for vim, irb, git, zsh, and more. Clone the repo: git clone git://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles.git Run the installer: ./install.sh This sets up the appropriate symlinks (`~/.vimrc`, `~/.irbrc`, etc.). As `thoughtbot/dotfiles` is improved, just keep pulling the repo. If you want to make changes, fork the repo (and send us pull requests). Go the extra mile and get ack, a fast tool for searching through files: ```bash curl http://ack.googlecode.com/svn/tags/latest/ack > ~/bin/ack && chmod 0755 ~/bin/ack ``` Note that you'll need the ~/bin directory for that to work: mkdir ~/bin One reason to get ack is that when you're working in your Rails app, move your cursor over a variable or method name, type `Shift-K`. That will search in your project, using ack, for that variable or method name. This is part of `dotfiles`. The `dotfiles` use zsh. Here's how to change the default Mac OS X shell to zsh: chsh -s /bin/zsh ## Xcode Tools It's generally good to have the Xcode tools installed if you're doing serious programming on Mac OS X. You will explicitly need it if you want to use MySQL with Ruby. The mysql gem needs to be compiled and won't work without it. Pop in your Mac OS X Install Disc 1 and run the XcodeTools installer: [![xcode install](http://images.thoughtbot.com/ui/2009-4-1-Picture_2.png)](http://images.thoughtbot.com/ui/2009-4-1-Picture_2.png) ## MySQL First, download the **package** for [OS X 10.5 86 32 bit](http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.1/mysql-5.1.35-osx10.5-x86.dmg/from/pick#mirrors). Run the installer. Install the MySQL gem so you can use MySQL with versions of Rails `>= 2.0`. gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config ## Rubygems The version of Rubygems that comes with Leopard is out of date. Update it. sudo gem install rubygems-update sudo update_rubygems Here's a buffet of gems you're likely to use. `sudo gem install` any that look interesting: cheat (1.2.1) cucumber (0.3.0) faker (0.3.1) geokit (1.3.0) giraffesoft-timeline_fu (0.1.1) github (0.1.1) heroku (0.6.1) json (1.1.6) mislav-hanna (0.1.7) nokogiri (1.2.2) passenger (2.1.2) rack (0.9.1) rails (2.3.2) railsmachine (1.0.5) RedCloth (3.0.4) redgreen (1.2.2) reek (1.1.3) rest-client (1.0.1) right_aws (1.10.0) right_http_connection (1.2.4) rr (0.7.1) rspec (1.2.0) sinatra (0.9.1.1) technicalpickles-le-git (0.2.0) thoughtbot-factory_bot (1.2.0) thoughtbot-paperclip (2.2.7) thoughtbot-shoulda (2.10.1) webmat-git_remote_branch (0.3.0) webrat (0.4.3) wirble (0.1.2) ## ImageMagick We use [Paperclip](http://github.com/thoughtbot/paperclip) for file uploads in Rails apps. It requires Imagemagick, which is much less painful to install than RMagick. [Download and unpack this tarball](http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/ImageMagick-universal-apple-darwin9.7.0.tar.gz). Follow [these instructions](http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php). ## Firefox & Firebug If you're a web developer, you need Firebug (or the new [developer tools in Safari 4](http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html#developer)). Inspect is your friend. * [Install Firefox](http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.0.8&os=osx&lang=en-US). * [Install Firebug](http://getfirebug.com/) ## Sphinx [Sphinx](http://www.sphinxsearch.com/) is a dependency on a couple of projects I've seen recently. It seems to be the preferred full-text solution for Rails developers these days. Install it if you need it: curl -O http://sphinxsearch.com/downloads/sphinx-0.9.8-rc2.tar.gz tar zxvf sphinx-0.9.8-rc2.tar.gz cd sphinx-0.9.8-rc2 ./configure make sudo make install ## S3 Hub [S3 Hub](http://s3hub.com) is a desktop application for managing your [Amazon S3](https://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/subscription/index.html/104-4018257-4816762?serviceID=8&servicePlanID=6&tag=ducktyper-20) buckets. It's really clean and easy to use. ## Go forth & conquer This will more than get you off the ground for Ruby web development on a Mac OS X. Please add any other tips & tricks you might know of in the comments.