From: Jim Weirich Date: 2004-07-10T17:08:04+09:00 Subject: Re: [ANN]: RubyGems 0.7.0 Released gabriele renzi wrote: >>>When is RubyGems becoming available as a gem? >> >>It's not. It's part of the infrastructure. > > what does it mean? > urpmi/apt/emerge/pkgsrc/whatever all allows self upgrading, why would > this be impossible with rubygems? RubyGems works by manipulating the list of directories searched for required files. By managing this list, rubygems allows multiple versions of a library stored on a system (although only one version at a time can be used in a single ruby program). In order for gems to be loaded, the software to manage the directory list and resolve version conflicts must be available and in the standard non-gem location. This bootstrap code can't be a gem, because it is used to locate a gem. It is conceivable that the non-bootstrap code could be made into a gem. This would be mainly the "gem" command itself. But currently, there is a fair degree of coupling between the bootstrap and non-bootstrap portions of the code. Being able to update the "gem" command, but not its supporting library would be of marginal value at the moment. If this changes in the future, then anything is possible. -- -- Jim Weirich jim@weirichhouse.org http://onestepback.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)