From: Austin Ziegler Date: 2005-10-03T01:38:58+09:00 Subject: Re: why can't Ruby load .gem files directly? On 10/2/05, Brian Schr�der wrote: > On 02/10/05, Corey Lawson wrote: > > It sounds like a debian user problem, not a Ruby user problem. I think most > > Ruby people (who probably are not running ruby on Debian) want Ruby to work > > like...Ruby, whether it's on a Mac, Windows, RedHat, Debian, Slolaris, > > whatever. Has a similar beef been made about Java on Debian? (Why must Java > > apps be deployed as .jar, .ear, war, whatever. Can't they pick just one and > > make it work with apt-get?). > If it is a debian user problem that is sad, but I have to say that I > try to avoid any libraries that are not packed as a deb. I do not have > gems installed because the duality of the gem and the debian system is > annoying me. > > This may be just an anecdote, but a lot of libraries are loosing at > least me as a user. I have packaged deb's myself and I don't think it > is a very complicated process, so I wonder why it is difficult to go > from .gem to .deb? Because .deb has no concept of multiple versions installed simultaneously being available for use. Because .gem doesn't have an answer to the DATADIR problem (the only *real* problem with the 1-gem-1-dir solution, as everything else is simply SMOP and prefixes). Anything else is ... going to become impolitic very quickly. If you want to see a *long* rant by me about it, as well as proposals that *should* be able to make this work even for Debian, read the ruby-core threads about integrating RubyGems into Ruby core. -austin -- Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca