Ruby Environment
Local Environment Setup
If you want to set up the Ruby programming language environment, please read the content of this section. This chapter will explain all the important topics related to environment setup. It is recommended to learn the following topics first, and then delve deeper into other topics:
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Ruby Installation on Linux/Unix: If you want to configure the development environment on Linux/Unix, please refer to this section.
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Ruby Installation on Windows: If you want to configure the development environment on Windows, please refer to this section.
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Ruby Command Line Options: This section lists all the command line options that you can use with the Ruby interpreter.
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Ruby Environment Variables: This section lists all the important environment variables that need to be set for the Ruby interpreter to work.
Popular Ruby Editors
To write Ruby programs, you need an editor:
If you are writing on Windows, you can use any simple text editor like VSCode or Edit plus.
VIM (Vi IMproved) is a simple text editor that is available on almost all Unix systems and now also on Windows. Alternatively, you can use your favorite vi editor to write Ruby programs.
RubyWin is a Ruby integrated development environment (IDE) for Windows.
Ruby Development Environment (RDE) is also a good integrated development environment (IDE) for Windows users.
Interactive Ruby (IRb)
Interactive Ruby (IRb) provides a shell for experimentation. Within the IRb shell, you can see the interpretation results line by line immediately.
This tool comes with the Ruby installation, so you don't need to do anything extra for IRb to work.
Simply type irb at the command prompt, and an interactive Ruby session will start, as shown below:
$irb
irb 0.6.1(99/09/16)
irb(main):001:0> def hello
irb(main):002:1> out = "Hello World"
irb(main):003:1> puts out
irb(main):004:1> end
nil
irb(main):005:0> hello
Hello World
nil
irb(main):006:0>
You don't need to worry about the execution content of the above commands for now; we will explain them in subsequent chapters.
What's Next?
Assuming you have now set up the Ruby environment and are ready to write your first Ruby program. The next chapter will explain how to write Ruby programs.