From: Richard Kilmer Date: 2004-07-10T23:15:46+09:00 Subject: Re: [ANN]: RubyGems 0.7.0 Released Comments below... On 7/10/04 6:57 AM, "Charles Comstock" wrote: > Jim Weirich wrote: >> >> 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. >> > > That's really unfortunate. I guess I don't follow why you can't have 2 > or 3 basic pointer files that load in either gem, or the library and > still point into your gem repository. I really think the format > framework must be limited if it's not easy to boostrap itself. I Its not a formatting issue. We could build into RubyGems the code to update itself. Its possible. Having said that, we would like it to move into the ruby core if/when it make sense to do so. If it did move into the core, then it would not necessarily make sense to update just itself...and to use it to fully update the ruby installation I think is beyond the scope of what we created RubyGems for. It is not a generalized package manager like RPM, its for managing Ruby libraries (assuming Ruby exists in the first place). Matz version manages Ruby right now, and Gems would fall into that same version/management policy. > consider it a very important feature for rubygems to take off well. We do to, and the measure of that is not self-update, its the community building a large repository of gems (apps/libraries) to install and keep updated over time...and that it (hopefully) will be brought into the core if its successfully adopted by the community. > > Charles Comstock -rich