I’ve used RVM for a few years now to manage different versions of Ruby on the same computer for different projects. I just recently had reason to install it again on the previously mentioned CHIP and it reminded me of an earlier conclusion: RVM is awesome!

It is super easy to install and use (even though compiling ruby on minimalistic hardware takes a long time), and when you think about it, it is solving a pretty tough underlying problem in a simple and elegant way. (Kind of like git, but that is a whole different post for another day.) I needed ruby 2.3.1 to run on the CHIP instead of Debian 8’s current default of 2.1 and in the end, installing rvm and getting set up was only two commands!

RVM is so simple that we often overlook how elegant and useful of a tool it is. Not any more! Thank you to everyone who has put in the work to make this impossible task easy for the rest of us.