From: Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@...>
Date: 2005-03-15T05:23:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Codefest Grant - RubyGems cleanup and enhancement

Eric Hodel wrote:
> Combining RPA and Gems is probably not going to be done during our 
> Codefest.

Is there any chance you could start this process a little bit?  Choose 
some of the main features of RPA that are missing from RubyGems and find 
a way of integrating them?

The ones that most interest me are:

== A way of differentiating "stable" and "unstable" packages ==

I don't think this should be a property of the gem, but maybe a 
meta-property of some kind.  The way Debian, Gentoo and the various BSDs 
do things is an example.  Someone determines which packages are stable 
and which are not, and the user can choose to install the stable version 
or the unstable one.

A given package with a given version number may get tested and be 
determined to be stable, and be designated "stable".  On the other hand, 
it may be determined that it is unstable, and so a particular version 
might never be made "stable".

== A way of interfacing with various other package managers ==

This may be pie-in-the-sky thinking, but wouldn't it be great if there 
were no distinction between installing something via rubygems and 
installing it via a package manager?  In other words, a debian user 
could choose to "gem install foolib" or "apt-get install foolib" and 
both would do the same thing?  A gentoo user could "gem install foolib" 
then later decide he/she doesn't need it and "emerge -C foolib".  A 
windows user could remove gems using "add/remove programs"?

I think this would be so amazing, but I have no idea how difficult it 
would be.  If it could work though, I would absolutely love it.

(as an aside, what is the current RubyGems method of removing a gem?)

Ben