From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2006-08-18T15:40:05+09:00
Subject: Re: require and the site_ruby directory...

Just Another Victim of the Ambient Morality wrote:
> 
>     I appreciate that it's hard to tell.
>     I don't really know what gems are and I generally try to avoid things I 
> don't understand.
>     If you go to the sourceforge download site:
> 
> http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=1453&release_id=6508
> 
>     You'll see that it comes in a .zip file with all the files in it.  Now, 
> pehaps this opinion is naive of me but if the package doesn't simply work as 
> it is packaged, then it is horribly broken.  I mean, really, what does the 
> gem do that's so different and what necessitates this difference?

It may be broken.

What was in the zip file? Was there a setup.rb and if so, did you
run it?

There may be some config involved other than just copying files over.
That's usually the case, esp. if there are many files in the package.

Gems are smart enough to know what's necessary to install themselves
(e.g. invoke setup.rb properly). And installing a gem is usually as
easy as: gem install foobar   (assuming you've got permissions, etc.)

Gems are there to make things easier, not harder. Usually they
succeed.


Hal