From: James Britt <james_b@...>
Date: 2006-05-09T04:08:42+09:00
Subject: Re: adwords4: access the Google Adwords API in ruby

Jason Clinton wrote:
>   On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 02:32 +0900, James Britt wrote:
> 
>> But after all is said and done, RubyGems is a big win for me, and has  
>> greatly simplified my Ruby life. 
>>
>> Ruby is all about choice. 
>>
> 
> There is no choice available if the package author neglects to include 
> the standard extconf.rb, make, make install routine.

Sure there is.  People looking to repackage source code provided as a 
gem have the choice of untarring the gem and writing any additional 
installation code that is of value to them.

Yes, it would make lives easier for some people if developers always 
provided additional code for various tasks, but that's the developers' 
choice.

If there were a Rake task that automagically created extconf.rb and make 
  for common gem source-code layouts, then people who prefer to 
distribute using only gems could include these extra files with no extra 
effort.

But, as it stands, it may be a tough sell to ask for them from people 
who do not see that value.  It seems similar to asking people to provide 
  a *.msi version of the code so that I can use the Windows package manager.




-- 
James Britt