![]() By encapsulating the installations of the Ruby programming language into separate command-line-driven environments, you can more easily control version dependencies. The most obvious benefit gained through the use of RVM is dependency management. By encapsulating different Ruby language versions into separate environments, RVM allows the developer to test out new versions, deploy existing applications without worrying about breaking changes, and ensure that application infrastructure management takes as little time as possible. Getting several different applications with several different sets of dependencies behaving properly can be a full-time job by itself. This consideration is also crucial for VPS hosted web servers, which may host multiple Ruby applications at once (such as a Resque-based delayed job server, a web server built on Rails, and a Sinatra-based admin console). ![]() For example, the release of version 2.1.0 introduced a breaking change in the REXML parsers that many Gems use to provide SOAP functionality. Furthermore, as an application grows and leverages various Ruby Gems, these third-party libraries may introduce further dependencies, making a simple version change a complex event fraught with peril. However, once a codebase reaches a certain level of complexity, it may be challenging to track exactly which dependencies the application relies on. Why Is RVM Important?įor a single small application, RVM may seem to be overkill. RVM handles swapping out all relevant execution paths, environment variables, and installed third-party libraries, allowing developers to focus on developing their applications instead of managing their dependencies. ![]() It accomplishes this isolation by encapsulating each installation into a separate set of directories and dependencies and providing easy-to-use command line tools to quickly switch between versions. RVM allows you to isolate these language binaries into separately-managed environments, which can be used at-will on your system. Even relatively minor version increases–such as from 2.1.4 to 2.2.1–can introduce changes to the language that break existing language behavior. A native install of the Ruby programming language will install the language’s binaries into a common bin directory on the operating system thus any change to those installed binaries will affect all Ruby applications hosted on the machine. ![]() RVM enables you to install multiple versions of the Ruby programming language on a single machine. Below we’ll discuss what RVM is, touching on each of the benefits that it has to offer. RVM (alternately expanded as Ruby enVironment Manager or Ruby Version Manager) tackles this problem head-on by providing a set of command-line tools that allow you to actively control not only the version of Ruby your application uses but also the Gem sets and versions it uses. Couple this potential with the use of third-party Gems that may depend on functionality within specific Ruby versions, and your application can quickly find itself struggling to meet all of the dependencies it needs just to execute. Ruby is an open-source language, so new releases can be frequent, and those releases can introduce drastic functionality changes. Managing multiple Ruby environments can be a challenge. Image: Ruby Logo by Yukihiro Matsumoto, Ruby Visual Identity Team / licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5
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