From: Mauricio Fernandez <mfp@...>
Date: 2006-06-15T16:07:02+09:00
Subject: Re: running applications installed from gems

On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 12:13:42PM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 6/14/06, Mark Volkmann <r.mark.volkmann@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I suppose rubygems is most often used for packaging libraries, but it
> >can also be used to package applications. I think it would be
> >convenient if something like this were supported.
> >
> >gem run minesweeper
> >
> >Is this being considered? Are there reasons why this would be a bad idea?
> 
> Ruwiki is packaged as a gem. It includes *multiple* "binary" programs.
> Just as #autorequire is a bad idea; #autorun (what would be necessary
> to support your idea) would be a bad idea.

It's not #autorun but #default_executable, and it is already in RubyGems.

 default_executable
  Type: String; Optional; default = (see below)
  Description Of all the application files in the package, the default
  executable is the one that can be run directly through the gem.
  Usage
    spec.executables = ['bin/foo', 'bin/bar']
    spec.default_executable = 'bin/bar'

  Notes
  If you only specify one application file in executables, that file becomes
  the default executable. Therefore, you only need to specify this value if
  you have more than one application file.
  The notion of running applications directly through a gem is not well
  supported at the moment. The idea is that you can download a gem, say
  monopoly.gem (the board game), and run gem monopoly.gem, which would run the
  monopoly application. This is not an in-demand feature.

It is defacto deprecated and should be removed altogether.

-- 
Mauricio Fernandez  -   http://eigenclass.org   -  singular Ruby