What will happen to rails app if I delete rvm?

Question

I'm working on making my first very simple rails app, and I think I'm running into trouble because I have both rvm and rbenv installed.

I'm not actually sure if it's related to that, but I thought it might be --

I'm trying to run the command: sudo rake gems:install and I'm getting this error message:

Could not find rake-11.1.1 in any of the sources

I ran bundle update rake and bundle install, and when I write 'which rake' - I get this: (which is why I thought it might be related to the fact that I have both rvm and rbenv included in my bash_profile)

/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.2/bin/rake

If this is the issue --- what will happen if I uninstall rvm? I don't really understand what it does well enough to understand what it will do to my existing code.

Thanks!

Answer 1

rvm is a great toolset for managing multiple ruby versions. I think of it like a tackle box for fishing: You've got different ruby versions, 1.9.3, 2.0.0, 2.2.3, etc. like the layers on the tackle box. rvm keeps a different directory for each version of ruby you have installed.

If you rvm use 2.2.3 you're telling your shell to point to ~/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.2.3/bin/ruby (check which ruby to be sure).

If you rvm use system and then which ruby you'll see /usr/local/bin/ruby, or the system-installed version

You can put different gems (tackle/bait/tools) in each one. This is immensely useful if you're developing on multiple ruby apps/gems at the same time.

If you rvm implode you'll clean all the .rvm/ruby installs out of your system. This is a good, safe way to keep your system ruby untainted, which is more of a hassle to reinstall.

Go ahead and try reinstalling rvm and bundle-installing.