Hi Jason, I used to develop inside a virtual machine as well (VMWare and VirtualBox) but made the switch to development on the same operating system for hardware reasons. The "workstation" I was provided with didn't have the specifications to run a virtual machine inside its host operating system.
Even though sometimes it's frustrating, having to work through missing dependencies and the like is a good experience. I work on a small team where both of us are full-stack developers. When something goes wrong we can only rely on one another and have to solve problems with no other assistance. Being able to scrap a VM instance or reset it surely is convenient but I feel that it prevents you from gaining some development (system administration, really) experience. My $0.02. On Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 11:46:49 AM UTC-6, Jason Hsu, Ruby on High Speed Rails wrote: > > I regard Vagrant as indispensable for Ruby on Rails development. (My > setup is at https://github.com/jhsu802701/vagrant-debian-jessie .) > Before I learned to use Vagrant, I used VirtualBox directly for Ruby on > Rails development. > > That said, I also know that most people rely on Ruby on Rails installed > directly on the host OS. I never liked this setup, because there was no > way to return Ruby on Rails to its initial state. If anything went wrong, > then I either had to troubleshoot the Ruby on Rails setup or reinstall Ruby > on Rails. I was unable to proceed any further on the project until I > resolved this matter. Additionally, there's also the "works on my machine" > problem. There were times when I tried to transfer my Rails app to another > machine or deploy it, only to be greeted by very long error messages > because of setup details that I forgot. There were also times when I > published a Ruby gem, only to get weird errors when I tried to use it. > These problems were most likely to crop up when I used "gem install" to > install a Ruby gem but forgot to add the gem to the Gemfile/gemspec or when > I made changes to the Gemfile/gemspec. > > As a result, I insist on using Vagrant so that I can return Ruby on Rails > to its initial state. I also insist on including in each project a setup > script that handles the setup AND testing. When I rebuild my Vagrant box, > git clone the project, and run the setup script, all of the tests should > proceed as expected. If that's the case, then I am assured that I have > covered all of my bases. If I get errors, or if strange things happen, > then I know that I haven't covered all of my bases and need to update my > setup script/instructions. > > That said, I'd like to hear from those of you who are still part of the > vast majority who use Ruby on Rails directly on the host OS. How do you > deal with the issues that prompted me to use VirtualBox/Vagrant? (I think > that gemsets are a popular solution. Is this correct?) > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rubyonrails-talk/af1a01a6-2ad6-4c74-b0e1-957469e06d05%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
