From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2006-12-19T16:31:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Strategies for writing Ruby applications to be easily distributed with RubyGems

On Dec 18, 2006, at 22:34, Zev Blut wrote:
> This is mostly a repost of ruby-talk[229723] with some clarifications
> and an appeal for ideas.
>
> I have recently attempted to write a RubyGem for the Saikuro project.
> Unfortunately, I have learned that there is a mismatch between how I
> wrote Saikuro and how RubyGems expects executables to work.
>
> I would like to know is are there any better or commonly followed ways
> of writing executables that work with RubyGems and other installation
> programs such as setup.rb ?

My executables typically consist of three lines:

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby -w
require 'some_file'
SomeFile.run

Where SomeFile::run is something like:

class SomeFile
   def self.run(args = ARGV)
     options = process_args args
     new(option[:foo]).run
   end
end

> 2)
> I was reading through the Programming Ruby book and found a part that
> showed how to use rdoc to create usage messages.  I figured this might
> be better than my normal technique so I used it in Saikuro.  This has
> caused a number of problems actually.

What does this technique look like?  I'm not familiar with it.

> My original goal was to keep Saikuro simple so that as a single file
> nothing complicated was needed.  But now I suppose that should change.
>
> I am planning to move all logic above and "if __FILE__ == $0" block
> into a separate library file.  Then add a require to this newly made
> file and remove the "if __FILE__" check logic to make the insides of
> the block automatically run.

I keep these together, but put the logic that would normally go in  
"if __FILE__ == $0" into its own method or methods.  That keeps the  
executable as simple as possible.

-- 
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://blog.segment7.net

I LIT YOUR GEM ON FIRE!