From: Glenn Smith <glenn.ruby@...>
Date: 2006-02-19T05:48:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Don't let this happen to Ruby, pleeeeease?

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Sorry, posted my rant, then disappeared for two days!

Perhaps the problem is more complex but I'm a simpleton, I just want to go
somewhere, download Ruby and start running it.  And like most of the world,
I want to do this on Windows.

No, hold on, let me rephrase that - I HAVE to run it on Windows, I really
would prefer to run it on Mac OS/X (but the wife won't let me buy a Mac!)
:o)

So I go to the ruby website and there is the announcement: #Ruby 1.8.4relea=
sed

Ooh good!  I'm happy, a nice new version of Ruby to look at.  Maybe I'll us=
e
some of it's new features, maybe I won't, but I'm a "languages fan", I
program for work and play, I like new things. I love Ruby. And so do many
others, and so COULD many more...

Anyway, underneath it says: "The source is
<URL:ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz><ftp://ftp.ruby-lan=
g.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz>,
the md5sum is bd8c2e593e1fa4b01fd98eaf016329bb, and filesize is 4,312,965
bytes."

Well, woopy-doo.  I couldn't care less what an md5sum is (I'm only vaguely
aware of what it means, and I've been using and programming PC's over 20
years).  Anyway, the link is to a tar.gz file.  Which is nice - if I was on
Unix. OK, I could extract it with Winzip - and I'll get... the source code.

I want a windows installer.  Somebody else probably wants a Mac installer.
Maybe an RPM for Linux flavour 1, a .DEB for flavour 2 and so on (alright,
the Unix people can just run MAKE if they want).  I don't have much recent
knowledge of hacking C, I just wanna use Ruby.  And more, I wanna know
what's new in this release.

Where's the "what's new"? Embedded in some text file on an ftp-site
somewhere, or perhaps it's in the tar file.  OK, so I know how to go look,
but there isn't anything even in the announcement that tells me to do that.
What if I was a relative-newbie? A youngster looking for a fun-new language
to teach themselves programming?

Am I asking a lot?  Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
"what's new", same for the previous two releases.  Installers for Windows
(32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are base=
d
on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).

Fair-do's to Curt for his excelent one-click windows installer, but if that
is to be the only simple method for eejits like me (and a million others, n=
o
doubt) then surely this warrants at the very least a mention and a
direct-link on the front-page of ruby-lang.org?

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