Note to self: Machine Setup

Every few years us developers find the need to recreate their precious development environment on new hardware. It's an exciting time, because "Hey, new hardware!" However we always find ourselves copying bits and pieces from the old hardware while trying to reconstruct our development environments. Some of us take good notes, I myself have been slacking. I had some notes, but not all. So I took this opportunity to make a note to self so that next time I can cruise through this process much faster.

Let's get started!

Package Manager

Previously I have always rolled with MacPorts. I'm finally caving. Install Homebrew

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"

XCode

You can't build a whole lot without it

brew install apple-gcc42
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/gcc-4.2 /usr/bin/gcc-4.2
sudo xcodebuild -license

RbEnv or RVM

I recently switched to RbEnv from RVM and am sticking with it.

brew install rbenv ruby-build
rbenv init

With RbEnv you need to install a shim to make life easier when referencing ruby:

echo 'if which rbenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Install Ruby!

rbenv install 2.1.1

Version Control

Visit Git and download the DMG installer. Then generate your RSA key and attach it to your Github account.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "snyder@usertesting.com"

Don't forget to make branch creation and deletion much easier and follow this great tutorial from Scott Bradley.

Also don't forget to configure your .gitconfig. Mine is saved in a repo on Github with my bash_profile and bashrc.

Rack server

Use pow, thank me later.

curl get.pow.cx | sh

Don't forget to install the powder gem for ease of use.

Editor of choice

I choose you Emacs! And let's setup and use Cask with Pallet to manage packages.

Download and install the dmg from http://emacsformacosx.com/

Install Cask (curl worked better than homebrew IMO)

curl -fsSkL https://raw.github.com/cask/cask/master/go | python

Download my .emacs.d repo into ~/.emacs.d to configure all the awesome packages and Cask. The setup is loosely based on this post.

Run Cask within the .emacs.d folder to install all of the packages listed in the Caskfile

cask

Bash prompt

I like my prompt to tell me a little bit about the directory I'm in. Especially if it's a Git repo. Follow this easy tutorial to setup a clean prompt that renders VCS info.

And for even more cool bashness, install autojump! I highly recommend cloning the repo and installing it manually.

And install iTerm2

Within my .bashrc I've setup some aliases for running Emacs locally as a server so I can work entirely within iTerm while developing. I prefer alternating tabs in iTerm vs alternating between GUI Emacs and the terminal.


See you again in 1-2 years!