From: "Mauricio Fernández" <batsman.geo@...>
Date: 2004-10-28T11:09:54+09:00
Subject: Cooperation between RubyGems and RPA (Ruby Production Archive)

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 09:38:11AM +0900, trans.  (T. Onoma) wrote:
> Then it sounds like that RubyGems needs to adopt the framework of RPA, and 
> help improve/adapt it to its needs, e.g. versionsing.

That's something the RubyGems team will have to decide upon but it
doesn't seem likely :)

> I like RPA. I want to use RPA. 

Then just do it ;) There are over 130 libs/apps in the Ruby Production
Archive...
If you want to package your software using rpa-base, take a look at
http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?Developer_Documentation/Introduction_To_Packaging_Using_Rpa_Base

This is some preliminary documentation (targeting RPA developers), but
I'd be willing to expand it if it helps you; feel free to ask for more
information. You can also get the package done for you on demand :)
(offer limited in time, take it now! ;)

> But I can't. I have to say "pretty please" 
> package this for me. I understand the QA. I think that's great. But I also 
> think there needs be a way for beta wares to "get on the line". Gems allows 
> that. So I'll just use Gems.

That's fine. That is the primary goal of RubyGems, and although it is
indeed possible and normally easy (the RPAfied install.rb is typically
shorter than the corresponding gemspec) to package your software with
rpa-base and distribute it (some people have done so in the past already),
it is not the primary goal of RPA. I refer you to the manifesto for more
information on our goals:

http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?RpaManifesto

I would hence recommend you to release your software using RubyGems and
following the good practices documented in 
 http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?GoodPractices
(http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?GoodAPIDesign won't hurt
either)
which benefit all repackagers (not only RPA but also FreeBSD, Debian,
Gentoo, PLD, Fedora, etc), or using Aoki's setup.rb.

> You all keep talking about why the two can't really work together. Eventually 
> you'll talk yourself right out of the picture.

We are already working together: the RPA team has contributed ideas
and code to RubyGems (something approaching 20% of their codebase was
originally developed for rpa-base); there's not much more we can do ;))
Also, the RubyGems team is committed to making RubyGems packages easy
to repackage for other people:

http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/rubygems-developers/2004-October/001150.html

That is, work is already on the way to make RubyGems repackager-friendly
and address the many issues reported by several independent packagers:
we are all looking forward to RubyGems making repackaging easier instead
of harder as happens often now.

-- 
Running Debian GNU/Linux Sid (unstable)
batsman dot geo at yahoo dot com