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{ Category Archives } ruby

Finally a gem release of ruby-opengl

Just wanted to let folks know that I’ve finally figured out how to get the build system in place for ruby-opengl to: Gemify itself Build native extensions during Gem installation using mkrf Which means (I hope) that there should be an easier way to get OpenGL working with Ruby. Currently it should support installing in […]

Messages like Warning: require_gem is obsolete. Use gem instead. driving you nuts?

If you’re seeing tons of those messages like I’ve been and wondering what in the world that is all about. After Googling around I finally found a definitive answer on Jason Young’s Blog what it was all about. What is it Since rubygems 0.9.0 the command require_gem has been deprecated in favor of just plain […]

Migrating instiki from one database type to another

The Rant Instiki is one of the premier wikis for Ruby on Rails which is another way of saying the other rails-based solutions don’t look that great so far from what I’ve seen. Here is an except from the instiki website: 1. Download 2. Run “instiki” with Ruby 1.8.4 or greater. (on windows, that’s instiki.cmd) […]

Rubygems gotcha. Dependencies won’t work if you install with a local gemfile

The Problem Dependencies won’t install when I try to install from a local gem. For example if you have a my-cool-project which needs your-awesome-lib (available via Gems) using a command like: gem install pkg/mycoolproject-1.0.gem It WON’T pull in your-awesome-lib. This is documented in this email post on the Ruby Talk ML Workarounds At present the […]

gem install mysql failing on Ubuntu fix

The problem Did you try something stupid (and expect something hopeful) like: $ sudo gem install mysql Then get something beautiful like: ERROR: While executing gem … (RuntimeError) ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. Gem files will remain installed in /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7 for inspection. Welcome to getting bit by the policy of the Debian packaging […]

Getting a ruby C extension to compile on Windows Part 2

In a previous post I mentioned how to get the Ruby C extension to compile under Windows using Visual Studio Express/Studio 2005. However, I left out an important part regarding manifests which have been part of the development process in VC++7 and above. Manifests are some XML representation of the bindings and and activation (whatever […]

Wirble: A ruby gem that gives tab-completion + syntax coloring to irb

Ruby Inside has a blog post on an add-on to irb that allows tab-completion and syntax coloring for irb. Way cool! The install instructions are simple as: Install Ruby Gems (You DO have this installed, right?) sudo gem install -y wirble Then add the following to $HOME/.irbrc require ‘rubygems’ require ‘wirble’ Wirble.init Wirble.colorize Then enjoy […]

Getting a Ruby C extension to compile on Windows

The Programming Ruby book is one of those must have references if you’re going to program Ruby. I still use it all the time when I’m looking up information on Ruby. One thing I’ve started playing with is getting a C extension to work with Ruby. Chapter 21 of Volume 2 of Programming Ruby gives […]

Making Rake create a gem as the default task Rufus

Yet another reason to like Open Source One thing I can say that I really enjoy about working with an Open Source project rather than commercial software is I can feel free to blog as many details as I want about getting something done in the hopes it helps me remember what I’ve done and […]

Helping openwferu follow the Ruby way

Hello (openwfe) World John Mettraux who is the project lead for OpenWFE has given me commit rights to his Ruby port of OpenWFE. I have to say I’m flattered by the trust in receiving commit rights considering: I have no experience with workflow systems I’m not exactly a Ruby expert First thing I did was […]

Smalltalk.rb

Avi Bryant blogged about his first concrete steps towards getting Ruby running on top of a Smalltalk VM. He calls it Smalltalk.rb I’m pretty sure this is the lightestweight bootstrap there can be towards the goal of eventually getting Ruby running on a Smalltalk VM. No new parser needed: we use JRuby’s. No new compiler […]

Jruby doesn’t support fork()

I noticed Charles Nutter (one of the JRuby developers) mentioning that the fork() method in JRuby will most not likely be supported: We would strongly prefer to avoid any implementation that requires fork, since we can’t really support fork in JRuby. While I can understand the difficulties in the Java VM giving lots of hell […]

Fixing ‘mkmf’ load error Ruby in Ubuntu

If you’re a Debian or Ubuntu user you’ll find that the Ruby standard distribution is split into lots of little packages so doing something like apt-get install ruby only gives you the ruby binary and a subset of the libraries for Ruby. You’ll need to add more packages if you want to utilize more of […]

Bruce Eckel takes another look at Ruby

Bruce Eckel of Thinking in Java fame takes a second look at Ruby. This time he has far less harsh words than his previous look at it (Note that the original post that Eckel made on Ruby seems to be MIA on his website. I’m a little miffed at that…) His second time around he […]

Windows-based Ruby install with Rubygems interfering with cygwin ruby?

I had a problem with a windows-based install of Ruby with RubyGems kept screwing up my cygwin-based installation of Ruby. Seems this is a ‘well-known’ problem in the Ruby community. The symptons look like this $ irb /usr/bin/ruby: no such file to load — ubygems (LoadError) Really annoying. To fix this unset the RUBYOPT environment […]