From: "Mauricio Fernández" <batsman.geo@...>
Date: 2004-09-03T18:00:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Pickaxe 2 and rpa-base

On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 07:32:05AM +0900, Carl Youngblood wrote:
> I was just drooling in anticipation for pickaxe 2 and looking through
> the table of contents on the pragprog web site.  I know this is
> probably asking too much considering its recent release, but rpa-base
> wasn't too far behind ruby-gems in being released, and I believe it is
> definitely a worthy contender in the ruby package management arena.  I
> was disappointed to see that it wasn't included in the book, although
> a whole chapter was devoted to ruby-gems.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that there's no conspiracy theory behind
all this :-)

Dave just didn't hear about RPA/rpa-base until it was too late... but
he added a short reference to RPA in the resource section.

At any rate, as Chad said, since RPA will be packaging itself instead of
asking the developers to adopt rpa-base, there's little (no) need for
an explanation of rpa-base's specifics in Pickaxe 2. rpa-base is still
open to modifications that could make such a chapter obsolete anyway.

I'd have liked a chapter on good practices, which would benefit all
repackagers -- making not only RPA's, but also FreeBSD's, Debian's,
etc job easier. I actually consider this *much* more important than a
detailed explanation of how to use RubyGems or rpa-base: good practices
are more stable than packaging technology, esp. in the initial stages.

Looking at the TOC of Pickaxe 2ed, it seems that chapter is very much
focused on RubyGems; I'd have preferred a general overview, followed by
an explanation of Aoki's setup.rb and then some short notes about how to
use RubyGems and most importantly where to find up-to-date documentation.
IMHO it makes little sense to give too many details since the specifics
are still subject to frequent changes. For instance, if that chapter
mentioned something about require_gem vs. stubs, it'd be already
partially out of date by now :-|

I'll have to wait until I can get hold of Pickaxe2 (I was too busy
hacking rpa-base/RPA to apply for a review :), but the TOC[1] makes me
suspect that what I'd have liked and what happened are quite dissimilar :-P

[1] 
Package management with RubyGems
* Installing RubyGems
* Installing Application Gems
* Installing and Using Gem Libraries
* Creating your Own Gems
   
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