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Ruby Build a Simple Ruby on Rails Application Getting Started with Rails Generate a Rails Application

I am working in windows and I get the message "the syntax of the command is incorrect."

I use the command prompt in Ruby on Railsand after it goes thru the Ruby info the prompt C:\Site> comes up and I type mkdir [~/Projects] rails new treebook (I've tries it without the mkdir) and just get "the syntax of the command is incorrect."

3 Answers

William Li
PLUS
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

The lecture videos were recorded using a Mac, so if you wanna follow along using a Windows Machine. There're some OS inconsistencies you need to keep in mind.

For example: Windows' command prompt is NOT a UNIX terminal, some commands you may see the instructor typing on screen may not work on command prompt; on Mac, forwardslash character / is used as directory separator, whereas on Windows it's backslash _\_, to name but a few.

Like Maciej Czuchnowski pointed out, it can be quite a bit of hassle here.

One of the best alternatives is to use a cloud-based IDE such as Cloud9 or Nitrous.io. They enables you to code within a web browser, that effectively eliminates the OS differences, plus a really nice UNIX virtual environment and real-time chat.

Thank you so much. I was searching I had a feeling that was at least part of my problem. I appreciate the help!

Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points

Never. Use. Windows.

At least for Rails development. Doing so feels like being tortured by Pinhead from "Hellraiser".

You can use - vagrant + virtualBoX, I am using it, all of working correctly