Quicktip - Use RubyGems default options to save you some typing

I hardly ever use the local RDoc documentation of my installed Ruby gems. Typing in --no-rdoc --no-ri every time I install a gem is cumbersome. The gem takes longer to install and it uses up unnecessary disk space. That annoyance goes doubly when installing gems on a server.

Luckily, RubyGems allows to set default options in a file called .gemrc which should be placed in your home directory. The syntax is in YAML format, therefore straightforward for a Ruby programmer. Just add this line to .gemrc and you are golden.

    gem: --no-rdoc --no-ri
  

A list of all options can be found here.