InfiniteRed

A fresh install of Mac OS X to Ruby on Rails, the right way, in a 28 minute screencast.

Many tutorials skip the little steps, causing people to get stuck. This screen-cast starts with a fresh install of Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.8), then goes step by step through the process of setting up a complete development environment for Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

I show you how to setup the following:

• XCode
• TextMate
• iTerm
• DarwinPorts/MacPorts Note: the screencast mentiones DarwinPorts, but it is now MacPorts. This link has been updated
• Ruby
• Ruby Gems
• Ruby on Rails

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Download Theme (once downloaded, simply double click on the file to install)

This theme is based off of the Succulent and Brilliance Dull themes. I wanted a black theme that had different colors for a wide variety of items, with coordinated colors between like items.

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Download Theme (once downloaded, simply double click on the file to install) I created the IR_Black theme, and some people asked for a white version of it. So instead of doing it manually I thought a quick Ruby script to make all the colors darker would work well.
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It's common for artists, such as graphic designers, to keep scrapbooks of designs that catch their eye. This could be a logo, typeface, color scheme, page layout, or whatever else they deem of high quality. They use these scrapbooks (which traditionally were books with scraps of paper in them) to get inspiration, to help them develop their own style (by identifying likes and dislikes), or simply to browse.

Why does this matter to you, a developer?

That's a good question, and at first when I started to keep a scrapbook, I did it mainly for visual designs like web-pages. But once I started I realized it would work really well for diagrams, code, clever UI elements, or really any content that I think is exceptional.

If I'm working on a task, and feel bogged down and un-creative, I'll browse my scrapbook, getting inspiration. I look for little things that make the scraps great. I ask myself, why is this particularly good? This works just as well for a sort routine in code, as it does for logo design.

The main benefits of keeping a scrapbook are:

• creating the habit of looking for, and identifying, content that you like, and
• browsing the scrapbook at a later time to get your creative juices flowing

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To write a command-line application in Ruby is very simple, the following two-line application converts everything in the standard input to upper case and then outputs it:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby 
puts STDIN.read.upcase

Although complete, this is hardly a proper application, which should include options, arguments, help, input error trapping, etc. I've created a skeleton for such a command-line application.

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Color Scheme

This color scheme is based off of my popular IR_Black theme for TextMate.

When thinking of vim or vi, visually appealing UI doesn't normally enter your mind. But that isn't due to a lack of features, because its support for syntax coloring is one the best I've seen; the only thing slightly better is TextMate. It's due to the poor color schemes many people use.

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