From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-06-10T10:23:43+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] RubyGems 0.6.1

Chad Fowler wrote:
>> Something minor but I just noticed that gem doesn't seem to support a
>> --version tag.  I see it has it on --rubygems-info but maybe --version
>> should alias that or something.  Not critical or anything but seems to
>> make more sense to me.

> I agree, but we're using --version to specify gem versions.  I think it
> makes sense to minimize typing for this operation as opposed to finding
> out the rubygems version, since the former will be used a lot more.  Do
> you think we need to alias --rubygems-version or something?

Not sure what you mean there, Chad.  gem --version currently does nothing,
and I don't know what "we're using --version to specify gem versions"
means.

Hang on, the penny just dropped.  I left my mistake in there to
demonstrate that in my mind specifying a version on the gem command-line
is a very rare experience to me.  When I want to install a specific
version of something I use, for instance:

  gem -i pqa-0.5

Of course there's

  gem -i pqa --version '< 0.7'

but like I say, I never really have a use for that.

Thus I support using --version to convey information about RubyGems, as
anyone accustomed to command-line tools will expect that.

Gavin