> Expecting other people to go out of their way to learn the things you know is disrespecting their time.
That might be true if you are going to use the tool precisely once and then never again, but this is your system's shell we're talking about. You're disrespecting your own time if you don't learn how it works.
> You said that rbenv isn't advanced shell scripting. You are right, it isn't - for us.
You're conflating the objective and subjective notions of complexity and difficulty respectively. rbenv is objectively simple and subjectively either easy or hard depending on your shell scripting experience. However, rvm is objectively complex and subjectively easy or hard depending on your Ruby environment customization needs. Programmers should prefer objective simplicity and leveraged familiarity every single time.
A small initial investment in learning your shell is significantly more valuable than a large delayed investment in learning RVM.
> Did you know that environment variables [...]
Absolutely everything you mention is discussed in great detail in the bash man pages. And even "in great detail" means that the ENVIRONMENT section fits on my 13" screen vertically at 80 columns and the INVOCATION section (which I found by searching for "bashrc") is no more than two screenfuls. That's a 10 minute trade for a lifetime of saving 5 minutes a piece on Stack Overflow visits.
> I'm going to assume that people don't, and don't like to, read documentation, and adjust my software to that fact.
Fine, but rvm has chosen the completely wrong way to go about adjusting the software to that fact! Rather than build a simple system that has an optional easy-mode layer on top, rvm begins with some crazy complex shell-builtin overriding functionality and works backwards from there. If at some later time I want to use the just put shit on my path mode, I'm shit out of luck.
That might be true if you are going to use the tool precisely once and then never again, but this is your system's shell we're talking about. You're disrespecting your own time if you don't learn how it works.
> You said that rbenv isn't advanced shell scripting. You are right, it isn't - for us.
You're conflating the objective and subjective notions of complexity and difficulty respectively. rbenv is objectively simple and subjectively either easy or hard depending on your shell scripting experience. However, rvm is objectively complex and subjectively easy or hard depending on your Ruby environment customization needs. Programmers should prefer objective simplicity and leveraged familiarity every single time.
A small initial investment in learning your shell is significantly more valuable than a large delayed investment in learning RVM.
> Did you know that environment variables [...]
Absolutely everything you mention is discussed in great detail in the bash man pages. And even "in great detail" means that the ENVIRONMENT section fits on my 13" screen vertically at 80 columns and the INVOCATION section (which I found by searching for "bashrc") is no more than two screenfuls. That's a 10 minute trade for a lifetime of saving 5 minutes a piece on Stack Overflow visits.