From: leon breedt <bitserf@...>
Date: 2005-03-04T14:04:51+09:00
Subject: Re: RAA Status & b

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 03:37:54 +0900, James Britt
<jamesUNDERBARb@neurogami.com> wrote:
> 1. Dump the RAA.
>    Don't bother fixing it.
>    Tell people to move their code to RubyForge.
> 
> 2. Dump the RAA
>     Tell people to find a home page for their
>     project and include "RAA" and "Ruby" in the keyword meta tag,
>     and let Google do the rest.
> 
> 2. Dump the RAA
>     Tell people to find a home page for their
>     project and tag it on del.icio.us with the tags 'Ruby'
>     and 'RAA', plus a brief description.
> I get the sense that this blogger's opinion was based entirely on what
> he  saw at the RAA.   RAA has pretty much fallen off my radar; If I'm
> looking for a Ruby app or lib I turn to RubyForge or Google.  The RAA
> has tended to be too incomplete or out-of-date.
I disagree strongly with this "dump the RAA" verdict. 

I don't understand the desire to dump something simply because it is
out of date. There is nothing wrong with its core fundamentals. Its
only problem is that it is not that up to date, but that is a solvable
problem.

If it was up to date, and had mirroring capabilities, it would serve
as an excellent directory and central download repository for
anything, including .gem/.rpa. RAA's virtue is its extreme simplicity.
In terms of browsing software, and finding something quickly, its UI
beats RubyForge hands down.

My major beef with the RubyForge/GForge/SourceForge is that for every
single project you register, the assumption is made that you want the
entire set of project lifecycle features, and clutters your project
page with every single feature of the software. To me, thats  worse.

I'm not saying its not providing a valuable service. But trying to
provide everything to everyone has never seemed to work out in the
real world. What is RubyForge's core valuable feature? An SCM
repository, mailing lists, and a Wiki, and stats/news on the
registered projects, and central downloads.

So why not add mirroring capabilities to RAA and have RubyForge focus
on the things that make it useful? And have RAA be the directory, with
RubyForge having being taught to speak to RAA.

Less is more...

Leon