MImichaelrkn·Oct 29, 2013Submission
Chruby: a lightweight, elegant RVM alternative
2 points · Open discussionpostmodern
chruby
Shell2012–2021
postmodern / chruby
chruby
Changes the current Ruby
15Distinct people
17Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.9KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Changes the current Ruby
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- postmodern/ruby-install · linked in 4 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 6:01:08 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year17 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-11-19 09:25:23 UTC to 2021-07-18 15:08:59 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
5 sources> RVM shouldn't still be around because of its user-hostile behavior of modifying the user's dotfiles (.bashrc, etc.) on installation without warning or permission.
RVM tells the user very clearly that it has modified the user's dotfiles.
And how many people do not want to modify the dotfile? Which user thinks, "oooh, modifying dotfiles is so evil, I'll just type in this command every single time I open a terminal"?
At the end of the day, RVM just inserts a few lines to the dotfiles. What's the problem with that?
Actually, chruby does not modify my dotfile for me, and I thought that modifying the dotfile is optional. I figured I'll just manually source chruby.sh every time I want to use it, just to experience how it's like. And then I ran into issues like this: https://github.com/postmodern/chruby/issues/213
Thanks but no thanks. I'd rath
Read the rest
er have the software modify my dotfile so that it can give me a pleasant user experience.
> For example, I've had cases where after installing it, I could not view man pages for any programs because installing RVM modified broke my $MANPATH. In other cases, things that were failing for other reasons started producing confusing errors due to RVM doing sketchy things like replacing cd with a shell function.
Never seen these problems before. Have you reported these problems? Have they been fixed in the latest version? If these problems are fixable then why throw the baby out with the bath water?
As for replacing cd with a shell function: it's because it's one of the few ways auto-switching can be implemented. They found in a user survey that 80% of the users want auto-switching, so who are they to say "no" to their users?
What problems have you experienced because of this? chruby's auto.sh implements the same functionality by installing itself into the shell's DEBUG hook... but is that really any better?
RVM is larger and does a whole lot more than chruby. For one, it's much more friendly to new users and doesn't suffer from usability problems like these:
https://github.com/postmodern/chruby/issues/212
https://github.com/postmodern/chruby/issues/213
In RVM 2.0: Convert 20,000 lines of shell script into Ruby [Fundraiser]Alternatively, use <100 lines of shell script: https://github.com/postmodern/chruby
In RVM 2.0: Convert 20,000 lines of shell script into Ruby [Fundraiser]If you are looking for a minimal alternative to RVM, you should also checkout chruby (https://github.com/postmodern/chruby#readme). It's only ~90 LoC, supports bash/zsh, optionally supports auto-switching of Rubies, and doesn't install obtrusive bin-stubs.
In Thoughtbot: Using rbenv to manage rubies and gems