From: richard lyman <lymans@...>
Date: 2004-07-23T01:49:23+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Ruby Installer for Windows 1.8.2-14_RC5 (from Ruby 1.8.2 preview1)

Perfect!!

I will love that functionality.

I had that very problem with the current setup (and I understand that
you've said that this is already being changed), is that when I ran
the command (something like):

gem install --remote fxruby

It got the version that had to be compiled - which I couldn't use...
Lyle helped point out that I'd need to manually select the binary
version (which you've mentioned will be automated), by running the
command

gem install --remote fxruby-1.2.1-mswin32

... and then it worked perfectly.

So... I'm excited for the functionality that will automatically know
that I'm on windows and that I want the binary, precompiled, version
of the package.

I have a question though - what about the list of Gems? Can the basic
listing of remotely installable gems indicate the existance of a
binary version? In other words, when I run the command:

gem list --remote

Can I get some indication of the existance (or non-existance) of the
binary versions?

I'm hoping to avoid useability problems when a package is listed in
the GUI as 'installable', but it really isn't, since there's no binary
version... I hope I'm making sense...

I want you guys to know that your work is really helping the
distribution-ability of Ruby.

-Rich


On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 01:08:21 +0900, Richard Kilmer <rich@infoether.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/22/04 9:05 AM, "Lyle Johnson" <lyle.johnson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:54:00 +0900, Lothar Scholz
> > <mailinglists@scriptolutions.com> wrote:
> >
> >> CH> The way I want to address this problem is to include RubyGems in the
> >> CH> installer, and then encourage package authors to release their packages
> >> in
> >> CH> RubyGems format. Then getting ruby-postgres installed on your system
> >> would
> >> CH> be as simple as running the command "gem install ruby-postgres".
> >>
> >> But this does still not help on binary extensions.
> >
> > Sure it would, if the package authors provide both source and
> > precompiled, "binary" gems for their packages. I don't know what
> > specific issues come into play with the ruby-postgres package, but
> > I've been experimenting with this in the alpha releases of FXRuby 1.2
> > and it seems to be working well.
> >
> >
> 
> And, we are adding to Gems the ability to utilize the platform attribute
> within the gemspec to select the appropriate binary vs. source gem (or give
> the user the option) if provided.  So if Lyle puts:
> 
> fxruby-1.2.0.gem
>     #=> spec.platform = Gem::Platform::RUBY
> 
> fxruby-1.2.0-win32.gem
>     #=> spec.platform = Gem::Platform::WIN32
> 
> It will pick (not based on the name, that is convention) the fxruby 1.2.0
> for your platform if one exists.
> 
> If a Linux user did:
> 
> gem install -r fxruby
> 
> RubyGems would download fxruby-1.2.0.gem and it would build it (using the
> extconf.rb, etc) upon install from source.
> 
> If a Windows user did:
> 
> gem install -r fxruby
> 
> RubyGems would download fxruby-1.2.0-win32.gem and it would just install (no
> building necessary).
> 
> This automatic selection capability will be in Gems SOON (hopefully in a
> week), but as Lyle said, you can currently build and install gems that are
> binary but its a manual choosing process.
> 
> -rich
> 
>