If you're gonna program, you need an editor

Learning TextMate, a developer's editor for the Mac, and what an editor it is!  I feel like I paid for a 1000 sq ft house and got a 4000 sq ft one instead.  This editor is overwhelming.  Very powerful, but a lot to learn.

A Dream Coming True - Rails/Merb on the Macintosh

Last friday I received my MacBook Pro 17" laptop from Apple.

Yup.  Me, who wants to do Rails/.NET/Java work, spent a wad on a Mac.  Some of you may be asking, "Why?"

Simple.  The Mac OS X operating system in a very classy and functional chassis.

My objective: develop Rails apps and deploy them into a virtual machine.  Without Windows interference.

So, tonight I downloaded VMWare Fusion for the Mac (as well as Parallel Desktop, a competitor) and installed them both.  I then poked around and, lo, here's a virtual application available with both Rails and Merb already installed on it.

What th' heck!  So I downloaded the Rails/Merb virtual image and had VMWare install and run it.  Voila!  I could browse both the Rails and the Merb instances inside the VMWare virtual machine in my Mac!  I could also ssh to the virtual machine and modify the programs inside.

So, I'm well on my way to "throwing the rope across the canyon."  When I do my first deployment to the virtual machine, I will feel as though I've made it.

Hey.  My wife just brought in the Vista Ultimate DVD package, so I'm now gonna mount that in the MacBook as well.