Ruby on Rails setup

Could some experienced users of Ruby and Rails give me some advice as to how to set up Ruby and Rails on my XP?

I have read the Pickaxe twice and the Agile book once, now I'm going to start to mess around.

I have a CS degree, but no real world experience and would like to start a web development company from the ground up using Ruby and Rails for development. I have another good paying job with lots of free time (non computer related) so I don't have to hit the ground running to pay any bills. I can build/learn/grow at my pace, hopefully not too slowly.

Should I set up Ruby and Rails by what's in the Agile book, or should I do InstantRails, or OneStepRuby Installer... etc.

Is XP ok or should I set up a *nix environment on my PC?

I can work my way through most problems so in your expert opinions, how should I get started? Any advice on hosting solutions when I really get going (someday soon)!

Thanks so much I need to put this CS degree to some good!

Shawn

I've been using InstantRails on XP to work through the AWDwRoR book and it has worked nicely. The latest version integrates with RadRails and it's a quick and simple install. What I really like about InstantRails is that it creates its own environment so you don't have to worry about it messing up other applications on your machine.

Jody Baty http://www.digitallearning.biz

Drew Olson wrote:

JodyB wrote:   

I've been using InstantRails on XP to work through the AWDwRoR book and it has worked nicely. The latest version integrates with RadRails and it's a quick and simple install. What I really like about InstantRails is that it creates its own environment so you don't have to worry about it messing up other applications on your machine.

Jody Baty http://www.digitallearning.biz      Ditto everything Jody said. InstantRails gives you a nice sandbox that you can play around in and if you don't enjoy it, just throw the folder in the trash. It's the best way to get up and running quickly on XP IMO.

-Drew    +1 for InstantRails.

I know it's cheating but I'm starting to use InstantRails as my standard Ruby install now :-S

My only recommendation would be to change the InstantRails MySQL install to run on Port 3307 if you are using another installation of MySQL on your PC - as you may do if you're running XAMPP or some other apps on .Net. I have been in that situation cos I had an app from someone else that needed to work with MySQL and it was a real pain changing the properties of that application to run with a non-standard installation of MySQL.

On the other hand, RoR makes it so easy to add a Port to your database.yml so that you can completely isolate your Rails apps (MySQL on Port 3307) from any other MySQL database running in your system.

Cheers Mohit.

have you used instarails in a production mode? or what's the best way for production on windows (if recommended)

John Ivanoff wrote:

have you used instarails in a production mode? or what's the best way for production on windows (if recommended)    Of course, you can use InstantRails in production - I don't see any reason why not. But, you'd probably need to tweak the setup as required. For small setups (a few simultaneous hits on an Intranet in a small shop), I think it'd work fine.

But honestly, I'm not using InstantRails in production - I'd imagine that it's best to deploy to *nix server.. I have an account with RailsPlayground and HostingRails which is where I intend to send apps that I want to deploy.

Cheers Mohit.