Or does the Vagrantfile specify the environment and when you vagrant init develop it recreates it?
I've never used Vagrant but am interested in starting to do something like this.
For example, just yesterday, a colleague wanted access to Fork the Cookbook's source (he was supposed to be helping out on frontend javascript). But because some bits of the code is written to be Linux specific, he needed a Linux box while working on a non-Linux box.
So I spent 30 mins creating a Vagrantfile, specifying the environment which Fork the Cookbook runs in. He takes it, runs the env, provisions with the existing provisioning script, and tadah, you get an environment where you get to run the code in.
Due to the synced directories, you can code in whatever env you are hosting on: it's like dropbox between your computer and the virtual box. Network pass throughs allow your host (i.e your physical machine) to use networks defined virtually in your virtual computer.
Great for sharing execution env and getting other people started. Not really necessary if you're working alone IMO
Sorry if i have missed this but how do you execute/debug in the IDE through Vagrant? e.g. how would rubymine use vagrant's ruby binary?
EDIT: A quick Google yielded this: http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/webhelp/configuring-remote-int...
It's common to use something like Chef or Puppet to provision the software that you actually need for each project rather than just put everything in the base box, but the author chose to just make an all-inclusive box instead.
There's only one box, and you add it to vagrant with "vagrant box add develop path/to/develop.box". After that, you can delete the develop.box file from your computer: it now exists somewhere in the nethers of vagrant's configuration.
I guess the main thing I can't get is say I have custom nginx settings or MySQL settings I need in a project. Do I setup those through Chef?
Thanks for the article, lots to look into.
If it's something specific for a project (i.e., a jekyll website), I just write a quick shell script to install jekyll in the Vagrantfile for that project instead of repackaging the whole box.
As for your second question, yes, you would have a specific Vagrantfile/box for a project where you need a specific enviroment. My "develop" box is a general case.
Here's a (slightly modified) example of a Vagrantfile that I use with a project: https://gist.github.com/taylorlapeyre/5399974
From there, the path of evolution for each box will take place individually. If you have a Vagrantfile that specify for one project to use Ruby2.0beta and another Vagrantfile for another project to use Ruby1.9, you essentially have two boxes, two execution environments, but you still code on the same machine.