A few weeks ago I started looking into the Ruby Version Manager (RVM) project to help me build a better testing setup for both my day job and the ActiveRecord SQL Server Adapter. In a previous article I covered details of how to get a development stack up and running for Rails with SQL Server using MacPort's. This article will cover some new additions to that goal, but first and primarily, I wanted to talk about the wonders of RVM and it's new ruby API.

Quite a while ago I wrote a soup to nuts article on getting the full multi-ruby development stack installed for those using the SQL Server adapter. The base package management system used there was MacPorts. In it I described how to edit the outdated Portfile for the rb-odbc package and exclaimed how important it was to use the +utf8 variant. I was totally wrong about that part.

Last week I started reading JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. It was on my list of long overdue things to do. While reading it, I wanted to be able to kick some simple JavaScript examples around. As rubyist we have it good, irb let's us fire up an interactive console anytime we want. But with JavaScript, options are limited. Sure you could install Johnson/EnvJS, Rhino or some other JavaScript engine. Maybe even load up firebug or the web inspector. But who wants to load a browser to play with JS?

Here is a little ZSH function I have been using for quickly setting up new XCode apps I call tire kickers, little play and learn apps. Being able to track your learning as you go with git.

if [[ -x `which git` ]]; then
  
	function ginit_xcode () {
	  git init
	  echo "\n\n# XCode\nbuild\n*.mode1v3\n*.mode2v3\n*.nib\n*.swp\n\
*.pbxuser\n*.perspective\n*.perspectivev3\n\n# OSX\n.DS_Store\n\n\
# TextMate\n*.tm_build_errors\n\n\n" >> .gitignore
	  git add .gitignore
	  git commit -m "Ignore Xcode stuff."
	  git add .
	  git commit -m "Initial Xcode project."
	}
  
fi

The echo lines puts out a .gitignore file that will look something like this.

# XCode
build
*.mode1v3
*.mode2v3
*.nib
*.swp
*.pbxuser
*.perspective
*.perspectivev3

# OSX
.DS_Store

# TextMate
*.tm_build_errors

As some of you know, I am in the last steps of announcing my first iPhone application. We all know that every good iPhone application has a great marketing website with a screen cast. I myself was heavily inspired by the Tapbots Convertbot website while building my own and wanted a good way of embedding the screen cast. I think the last time I did an object/embed tag was god... around 2003 or something, seriously.

This guide is all encompassing but primarily focuses on the benefits of MacPorts, second the development stack for SQL Server and lastly on anything else a rails developer might need on OS X. If you are on a Mac, possibly running Snow Leopard and x86_64 is near and dear to your heart, this article is for you. If you do not "have" to use SQL Server, you can safely skip those sections and get to the Ruby1.9/Apache2/SQLite3/MySQL stuff.

UPDATE: Hacks no longer needed, latest Visor/SIMBL is 64-bit Snow Leopard happy! This is a similar process that I had to go through back in the day when I had to hack visor terminal in Leopard. Basically the steps are pretty easy. First you just install SIMBL and the Visor.bundle as a SIMBL plugin in ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/Visor.bundle. Once that is done here is the process to get this working in Snow Leopard.