From: Wilson Bilkovich <wilsonb@...>
Date: 2006-12-22T09:44:43+09:00
Subject: Re: [debian rant ?] Remove Ruby 1.8.5?

On 12/21/06, Vincent Fourmond <vincent.fourmond@9online.fr> wrote:
> Wilson Bilkovich wrote:
> > I think subtraction makes more sense than addition here.  The Debian
> > Ruby packages have been the cause of countless hours of free support
> > here and on other Ruby-related mailing lists.  'Catastrophic' is not
> > too large a word here, in my opinion.
>
>   Substraction is nearly impossible with the way debian packages are
> handled now. That would be a valuable addition to the project, but a
> long term one.
>
>   In my [debian developper] opinion, it is not possible to merge the
> packages you mentionned. But it would be possible to have a ruby-full
> package that woul install all the packages that expect to make up a full
> ruby distribution. Would that cheer you up ? You would have only one
> package to select (but still many automatically installed). I'll forward
> the idea to the debian ruby team (some of which are probably reading
> this already...)
>

Yes, that would be awesome.
However, I think it should be called 'ruby', and the existing package
be renamed 'ruby-runtime' or something else similar but consistent
with existing naming schemes.

People seem to almost universally expect "apt-get install ruby" to
give them irb, rdoc, ri, and the ability to install extensions.

Virtually any change would be for the better, though. :)