From: Zeno Davatz Date: 2011-01-22T18:31:56+09:00 Subject: [ruby-core:34784] [Ruby 1.8-Feature#4239] Let's begin a talk for "1.8.8" -- How's needed for surviving 1.8? Issue #4239 has been updated by Zeno Davatz. Dear Matsumoto-san Thank you for your reply. Your question is rhetorical, not practical. No I do not suggest that. I suggest for the Future that you should make and maintain a list of the most popular gems and their maintainers, that you consult _before_ you release a new Ruby-Version. And if a gem is very, very popular but the owner is gone then you should try personally to find a new owner for the gem (invest personal time, show personal care about the gem), just to keep the Eco-System running and evolving. Ruby is popular and attractive because of its gems. If you do not care about the gems you will kill the Eco-System every time you release a new Ruby Version. Also I think that patches should not be cherry-picked by their best features. They should be merged more aggressively so we have less dead-end projects, of which we do not know where they are going. The Oniguruma-Patch was Cherry-Picked for its best features. I still have no answer why that was done. I also think that switching to a new version of Ruby should not break existing Software that runs on a current version of Ruby, specially not so if that Ruby-Software uses some very popular gems. Popular-gems with many downloads tell you something: They tell you that many people use them and if they stop working with a new Ruby Version you will give a hard time to all of their Users. Ergo you will make upgrading to a new Ruby-Version more difficult for your existing Ruby-Users. People say: mod_ruby is dead, it has not been maintained since 2008. Switch to Ruby 1.9.2 and Mongrel it is the best thing in the world. Well first of all that is not true, Shugo-san wants to continue his development of mod_ruby (I know because I asked him personally via Twitter), and second mod_ruby is very fast and highly reliable even if it has not been maintained a lot since 2010. So a lot of people try to push me to Ruby 1.9.2 but hey, they obviously do not make a living of their Apps and they do not really use the gems we use every single day. They do not see that if you upgrade your App all of a sudden dbi stops woking, pg stops working, Oniguruma works completely differently, etc. I do not blame them for that. But people who talk about gems they do not use on a production basis trying to push other people to a new Ruby-Version that breaks a lot of things, well that is not such a good idea. I do not think that Ruby just wants to be cool. I think Ruby should also be more consistent. Less dead-ends more integration through the leader himself. Best Zeno ---------------------------------------- http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/show/4239 ---------------------------------------- http://redmine.ruby-lang.org