From: James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@...>
Date: 2004-12-17T22:42:19+09:00
Subject: Re: gem update behavior (Re: [ANN] Rails 0.9: Fast development, breakpoints, validations...)

David A. Black wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, James Britt wrote:
> 
>> David Heinemeier Hansson wrote:
>>
>>> ...
>>> As also, the easiest way to upgrade the software is: "gem update"
>>
>>
>>
>> Running gem update will update *all* installed gems.
>>
>> If any gem (not just a rails gem) has an API change, then you'll have 
>> to go change your code to either use the new API or to request a 
>> specific gem version.  Probably better to update gems on purpose, when 
>> you have some idea what to expect, rather than doing a bulk update on 
>> every gem just to get a few specific items.
>>
>> Running
>>  gem install rails
>>
>> should update all rails-related gems without affecting any other gems, 
>> which is a safer, more responsible, suggestion on how to upgrade rails.
> 
> 
> I believe David meant it as in: "Use the 'gem update' command (which
> in this case, since you're updating Rails, would take the argument
> 'rails')", just as one might say, "Use the 'ruby' command to run a
> Ruby script".

Well, even if that is the intention, it is not the behavior.

gem update foo

updates every gem, not just foo.

> 
> It's true wording of this kind is slightly ambiguous, but that's all.
> It's not the first time something has had to be clarified a bit.  I'd
> like to nip in the bud the implication that David was trying to steer
> people toward updating all their gems at once, which he wasn't and
> which attributes to him either ignorance of gems or some kind of
> bizarre pranksterism -- wrongly, in either case.

I don't think David was advocating one update all gems, but that is the 
end result, and it has been pointed out here before.

I've also mentioned it to Jim W., as I was caught off-guard by this on a 
previous rails update.  I suggested that either 'update foo' should 
should update only foo, or at least warn that it will update all gems.


To check this, I just ran

c:\>gem install rubygems
Attempting local installation of 'rubygems'
Local gem file not found: rubygems*.gem
Attempting remote installation of 'rubygems'
Updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org
Successfully installed rubygems-update, version 0.8.3
Installing RDoc documentation for rubygems-update-0.8.3...
WARNING: Generating RDoc on .gem that may not have RDoc.

(But note:
c:\>gem -v
0.8.1
)


I then ran
   gem update rake

and rubygems proceeded to try to update all my gems.  (Ironically, it 
choked and died trying to update the rails actionmailer gem.)

c:\>gem update rake
Upgrading installed gems...
Attempting remote upgrade of actionmailer
Attempting remote installation of 'actionmailer'
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (NoMethodError)
     undefined method `serialize' for 
CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore::Session:Class



Thanks,


James