Development Environment Setup

This document is a manual how to configure flexible development environment for Java, JavaScript, Ruby and Python - my primary set of tools. Even if the runtimes installation with apt-get seems to be a trivial task, there is limited control over installed version of the runtime. The goal is to configure environment where you can easily change Java, Ruby , node.js and python versions. Where you can define the runtime version on project level.

The most convenient way to configure and manage runtimes is to use environment managers. Environment manager is nothing more than shell script, the script intercepts executed commands using shim executables injected into your PATH. There are two flavours of the environment managers: rvm and rbenv like. I prefer the second one, it’s less obtrusive and follows general unix principle: “do one thing and do it well”.

Let’s start and install environment managers (for Java, Ruby, node.js and Python) into your home directory:

git clone https://github.com/gcuisinier/jenv.git ~/.jenv
git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
git clone https://github.com/OiNutter/nodenv.git ~/.nodenv
git clone https://github.com/yyuu/pyenv.git .pyenv

For rbenv and nodenv you can install plugins that provide rbenv install and nodenv install commands to compile and install runtimes automatically. For Java you have to download and install JVM manually.

$git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
$git clone https://github.com/OiNutter/node-build.git ~/.nodenv/plugins/node-build

Add environment managers to the PATH variable and initialize them to get command auto completion. Append the following snippet at the end of .bashrc (or .bash_profile on Mac) file.

export PATH="$HOME/.jenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(jenv init -)"
 
export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(rbenv init -)"
 
export PATH="$HOME/.nodenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(nodenv init -)"

export PATH="$HOME/.pyenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(pyenv init -)"

Install runtimes using environment managers (Java needs to be installed manually):

$jenv add /path/to/already/installed/jdk
$rbenv install 1.9.3-p448
$nodenv install 0.10.12
$pyenv install 3.4.1

Install build tools (maven, gradle, sbt, etc.), create symbolic links, and configure PATH in .profile file:

APPS="$HOME/apps"
export PATH="$APPS/apache-maven/bin:$APPS/gradle/bin:$APPS/sbt/bin:$PATH"

Make build tools jenv aware:

$jenv enable-plugin maven
$jenv enable-plugin gradle
$jenv enable-plugin sbt

Finally add shell helper functions for JVM configuration to the .profile file:

function jdebug_set() {
    jenv shell-options "$JENV_OPTIONS -Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:server=y,transport=dt_socket,address=8000,suspend=n"
}

function jdebug_unset() {
    jenv shell-options --unset
}

function gc_set() {
    jenv shell-options "$JENV_OPTIONS -XX:+PrintGCDetails -Xloggc:gc.log"
}

function gc_unset() {
    jenv shell-options --unset
}

function jrebel_set() {
    jenv shell-options "$JENV_OPTIONS -javaagent:$APPS/jrebel/jrebel.jar -noverify"
}

function jrebel_unset() {
    jenv shell-options --unset
}

function jprofiler_set() {
    jenv shell-options "$JENV_OPTIONS -javaagent:$APPS/jprofiler/bin/agent.jar"
}

function jprofiler_unset() {
    jenv shell-options --unset
}

The last step is to read environment managers manual. As long as all four managers are very similar it should not take more than one evening.