From: Devin Mullins <twifkak@...>
Date: 2005-10-03T00:24:49+09:00
Subject: Re: why can't Ruby load .gem files directly?

Joshua Haberman wrote:

> Say that you had two implementations of gems with identical feature  
> sets, but one used the "gem" command to do everything and one let you  
> use .gem files directly.  I would *much* prefer using the latter.

Actually, it doesn't sound like they're mutually exclusive. Stick a 
little flag in the metadata.gz that says "I don't have a compile step!" 
and then it can be stuck on the $LOAD_PATH directly. Otherwise, upon 
require-ing something from inside the gem, you'll get an error "Install 
meeee!!"

> Yes, I don't know the details of the current controversy (ie. why  
> Debian is having a problem packaging gems)

Neither do I. Are they trying to repackage gems as... err.. whatever the 
apt-get file extension is? If so, why?

Devin