From: Alan Schwarz <alanschwarz@...>
Date: 2012-04-04T11:04:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Can someone throw me a bone

On Tue Apr  3 17:10:54 2012, Bob Baird wrote:
> MIke,
> I took a look but it is all greek to me. Not sure what Xcode 4.3 is or
> many of the other programs discussed in the blog.
>
Xcode 4.3 is a 2+ GB download so that you can make Mac and iOS apps 
using the Objective-C programming language. But because it is overkill 
for people who only need to play with Ruby Apple now provides an 
installer that will give you just the command line tools based on the 
one created by Kenneth Reitz. Homebrew is needed to get some additional 
tools before you can run rvm.

> So, I am kind of at a real loss here.  I had no idea (especially on a
> Mac) that upgrading an application would be this problematic.
>

Yes, it is humorously called yak shaving. Whole ecosystems have formed 
as a result of a group of programmers trying to make it easy for other 
programmers to do something.

> BTW, any advice as to where I should start on this journey given that I
> clearly don't have the knowledge to even begin.  I have taught myself
> PHP, MySQL, ASP and VB script so I am not a dummy but Unix and Ruby are
> new.

What's your previous experience with the command line? Did you use 
Windows and its Command Prompt before?
>
> Bob
>