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I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?

Cheers
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

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Am 17.09.2010 10:53, schrieb Tom Wardrop:
> I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
> am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
> developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?
>
> Cheers

My personal opinion about this is that developing on Windows is not as
hard as it used to be since the Ruby Installer + DevKit have been
released. However, Windows stays Windows, and the thing I personally
most miss in Windows is the #fork method and the ability to create
multi-process programs easily. When Ruby gets rid of the GIL sometime
and Ruby's threads will run truly concurrent, I may not miss it anymore
(Ruby 2.0, maybe?).
Apart from that, I just dislike non-free (free as in freedom) operating
systems

Vale,
Marvin
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[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

There is quite a few reasons, the main one is that Ruby assumes a POSIX
environment
for general development, and this is worked around (usually successfully) on
windows.

But there are enough areas where it doesn't work that cause issues ad a
general feeling
of dissatisfaction.

Note that this situation is changing considerably. JRuby has made serious
development
on windows for Ruby users possible for several years now, and the latest
release of
RubyInstaller has made dramatic changes to how Ruby works on Windows (in
short it introduces
the equivalent of a POSIX toolchain).

There is a long history on this problem, but it is not as interesting as the
positive recent
developments that make Ruby on Windows a much more pleasant experience.

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Tom Wardrop <> wrote:

> I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
> am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
> developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?
>
> Cheers
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>
>


--
http://richardconroy.blogspot.com | http://twitter.com/RichardConroy

On 17/9/2010 6:02 PM, Quintus wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Am 17.09.2010 10:53, schrieb Tom Wardrop:
>> I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
>> am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
>> developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?
>>
>> Cheers
> My personal opinion about this is that developing on Windows is not as
> hard as it used to be since the Ruby Installer + DevKit have been
> released. However, Windows stays Windows, and the thing I personally
> most miss in Windows is the #fork method and the ability to create
> multi-process programs easily. When Ruby gets rid of the GIL sometime
> and Ruby's threads will run truly concurrent, I may not miss it anymore
> (Ruby 2.0, maybe?).
> Apart from that, I just dislike non-free (free as in freedom) operating
> systems

Barring ideology, there are, in my opinion, two main annoyances in
working with Windows..

1. Some times, it can take a while to start the Ruby interpreter - and
Ruby runs slowly. While an annoyance, most people don't deploy on
Windows and a bit of extra time in starting a long(er) running program
is fine for me.

2. Some native gems fail to build and you need to find a way around it.
Luis' work and the DevKit, etc. are changing this situation on a daily
basis.. so, we will get there.

Barring that, I haven't found any reason to avoid working on Windows
using Ruby. Some of the things that I do require Windows - for example,
I use Win32Ole to parse Word documents to put into a Radiant CMS site...
so, I'm happy enough working there.

Best Regards,
Mohit.
17/9/2010 | 6:11 PM.

I totally agree with Richard - I am stuck with windows mostly as I got
MS qualifications so I can possibly get a job in developing and my
machine doesn't have sufficient space for a duel boot at the minute (
catch 22 - job = money = new machine!).

Sooo... using the latest windows installers results in a generally
pleasurable ruby experience. Nearly everything works well on windows and
I can develop with ruby to my hearts content. Occasionally a gem appears
that will not work on windows - I think this is due to a lack of thought
or even disregard rather than it can't be done, e.g. rvm (switch
between ruby versions)

I use ruby 1.8.6 or 1.8.7 (waiting for some of my favourite gems to
update for 1.9) and I do have 1.9.1 which I am experimenting with.
Windows is XP and I use notepad++ or scite. Scite is excellent for
small programs and learning, why use anything else?

Have fun

On 17/09/10 11:53 , Tom Wardrop wrote:
> I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
> am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
> developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?
>
> Cheers
The bulk of my development work is on Windows and it has been since I
started using Ruby (way back in the 1.6 days).
The OneClick installer was a blessing but had the known problems, the
new RubyInstaller is even better and the devkit makes life a lot easier.
The win32-* gems cover most of what people would need with windows
specific stuff.
The missing fork() and speed are the main concerns. The Ruby interpreter
on Windows performs abominably - so much so that when I have to work on
large sets of data I do the work on the Mac.
And all the web servers (webrick, mongrel, thin) perform much better on
any other platform.
Having said that 95% of the time performance is good enough and the ease
of expression in Ruby makes up for any windows specific annoyances.
Cheers,
V.-

--
http://www.ampelofilosofies.gr

Much of the criticism, I believe, comes from cultural rather than
technical concerns. Most of the movers-and-shakers in the Ruby
community are using either *nix or OS X and therefore most of the
blogs, articles, tutorials and books come written through that prism
(actually, earlier works were much better in this regard). This can
make it tricky for newcomers to learn Ruby if they're on Windows and
it cements a perception that Ruby on Windows is harder than it should
be, or doesn't work as well. Take the Rails Tutorial for example -
it's very POSIX centric and even advises using Cygwin rather than
native Windows. It's an awesome tutorial, but it would leave the
curious Windows-using dabbler with a sense that Rails, Ruby, Git and
the rest are really designed for Unix and unsatisfactory, hacky
afterthoughts on Windows. The result: people either switch, or turn
away. I know Rails !=3D Ruby, but many (perhaps most) newcomers are
introduced to Ruby through Rails, so I believe this is a good example.

The thing is, Ruby on Windows needn't be a poor experience - with the
right tools and advice, and good quality, disciplined cross-platform
programming on the part of Ruby developers, the beauty of Ruby can be
enjoyed just as well on Windows as it can on OS X or *nix. The Python
community seems to be ahead of Ruby on this point. I believe what we
need are more developers dedicated to improving the experience on
Windows (the RubyInstaller team being a fantastic example) and also a
more concious welcoming of Windows users into the community (as in,
less of the mocking of Windows and Windows users in general - yeah, I
know, boo-hoo, violins, etc. - but for a newcomer, it's not the best
experience to feel like you're some sort of pariah) Now, we all need
to have a sense of humour and have to be able to take a bit of
ribbing, but the joke is kind of old and stale now, and things have
improved tremendously in recent months on Windows, and, well, we're
all just trying to get some work done, no? Can't we all just be
friends, dammit? But if we can continue this trend of making
Windows feel less of a hostile environment for Ruby, then I'm sure
more Windows developers will be attracted and therefore will pour more
resources into improving Ruby on Windows. So, keep up the good work
and less of the negative stuff, in other words.

(btw, this particular community is actually very welcoming and always
has been; my mild critique is more aimed at the high-profile bloggers,
developers and pundits, particularly in the Rails community.)

Charles
--
Charles Roper
http://twitter.com/charlesroper

On 17 September 2010 11:12, Mohit Sindhwani <> wrote:
> =C2=A0On 17/9/2010 6:02 PM, Quintus wrote:
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Am 17.09.2010 10:53, schrieb Tom Wardrop:
>>>
>>> I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
>>> am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
>>> developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>
>> My personal opinion about this is that developing on Windows is not as
>> hard as it used to be since the Ruby Installer + DevKit have been
>> released. However, Windows stays Windows, and the thing I personally
>> most miss in Windows is the #fork method and the ability to create
>> multi-process programs easily. When Ruby gets rid of the GIL sometime
>> and Ruby's threads will run truly concurrent, I may not miss it anymore
>> (Ruby 2.0, maybe?).
>> Apart from that, I just dislike non-free (free as in freedom) operating
>> systems
>
> Barring ideology, there are, in my opinion, two main annoyances in workin=
g
> with Windows..
>
> 1. Some times, it can take a while to start the Ruby interpreter - and Ru=
by
> runs slowly. =C2=A0While an annoyance, most people don't deploy on Window=
s and a
> bit of extra time in starting a long(er) running program is fine for me.
>
> 2. Some native gems fail to build and you need to find a way around it.
> =C2=A0Luis' work and the DevKit, etc. are changing this situation on a da=
ily
> basis.. so, we will get there.
>
> Barring that, I haven't found any reason to avoid working on Windows usin=
g
> Ruby. =C2=A0Some of the things that I do require Windows - for example, I=
use
> Win32Ole to parse Word documents to put into a Radiant CMS site... so, I'=
m
> happy enough working there.
>
> Best Regards,
> Mohit.
> 17/9/2010 | 6:11 PM.
>
>
>

On 17 September 2010 11:50, jonty <> wrote:
> Occasionally a gem appears that will not work on windows - I think this i=
s
> due to a lack of thought or even disregard rather than =C2=A0it can't be =
done,
> e.g. rvm (switch between ruby versions)

Check out Pik: http://rubyinstaller.org/add-ons/pik/

Charles

I've heard a lot of criticism about developing for Ruby on Windows, but
> am yet to see anyone elaborate on this. Can someone enlighten me on why
> developing for Ruby on Windows is considered to be painful?

Basically because the startup time for rails is so terribly slow.
Nothing else comes to mind.

-r
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Ahh, many thanks charles - I hadn't spotted pik yet, looks great I
will try it today!