Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Ruby

Chris Ward
Chris Ward
12,129 Points
Posted by Chris Ward
Chris Ward
12,129 Points

Do I have to upgrade to get a recent version of Ruby?

I'm not one to drop everything I am doing. And I didn't expect to have an issue. The "you must upgrade everything" is an annoying aspect of the Apple culture that I don't care for. So what I want to know is what I need to do to get a recent version of Ruby working on my older MacBook Pro. The version installed is 1.8.7, I'm hoping to get something newer. I've tried installing in rbenv, but it is picky about the version of clang I have, and I've found there is no manual way to upgrade clang. My computer is usable and I would prefer to wait to replace it, but it has some hardware issues that make me uncomfortable doing an OS upgrade. I'm running OS X 10.6.8 and would like a more recent version of Ruby on here than 1.8.7, but I can't update clang without updating XCode and I can't update XCode without updating the OS version. I don't see why Ruby should require me to have the latest version of OS X, it isn't like I am developing iOS applications at this point. If anyone has some advice, it would be greatly appreciated. I want to get working with Ruby and Rails at home ASAP.

3 Answers

Tim Knight
Tim Knight
28,888 Points
Tim Knight
Tim Knight
28,888 Points

Have you considered using RVM and Homebrew instead?

Checkout http://rvm.io/

RVM will use Homebrew to help install requirements, but you'll have to install that separately.

Chris Ward
Chris Ward
12,129 Points
Chris Ward
Chris Ward
12,129 Points

I have MacPorts installed on here instead of Homebrew, is there an issue with that? I'm thinking of getting rid of the MacPorts, however, because there is a problem with a Python module that I can't seem to fix.

Tim Knight
Tim Knight
28,888 Points
Tim Knight
Tim Knight
28,888 Points

There isn't a problem with it, it's just less things are using MacPorts these days. I don't believe RVM will use MacPorts at all. I was a Homebrew convert from MacPorts... I'd do some research and consider it. I don't use rbenv like a lot of people... I find Homebrew and RVM work much better for me and I've been using that workflow for the last 7+ years with Ruby/Rails.

Chris Ward
Chris Ward
12,129 Points
Chris Ward
Chris Ward
12,129 Points

Ok, I'll give it a shot, but I have to uninstall rbenv first. Anything special I need to do for uninstallation of what was installed in the video?

And I'm close to getting a new computer BTW, but I don't have the 3.5k at the moment for the one I'm considering. My MBP has certainly lived its fair share. It's just bad timing for me.

Tim Knight
Tim Knight
28,888 Points
Tim Knight
Tim Knight
28,888 Points

I would just reference https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv#uninstalling-rbenv but it should be pretty straight forward for you.