From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2008-03-17T23:23:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Yet another Windows installer

Marc Heiler wrote:
> To be honest i think it would be better if all those smart Windows guys 
> come together and also work together.
> 
> If there are problems that cant be solved, it would be nice if we here
> could somehow help out.
> 
> Here is my reasons (it is personal):
> 
> I develop/write on Linux. Although I have a few problems with Linux
> in some areas, in general Linux is a MUCH better plattform than
> Windows as far as I am concerned. Writing ruby is quite easy so
> my ruby stuff runs on Windows too (sometimes adapting a few things,
> but in general this is a true statement).
> 
> Now, when I work with windows, I would like to have the option to
> install pretty everything that I want to have on windows (which
> normally is a lot). It would be great if I could fine-tune
> the install. Also the download size for me does not really matter,
> if its 50 mb, 100 mb, 150 mb... about a year ago i bought a 4
> gig usb stick, very small, for 31 Euros. I think this is quite
> cheap to not really care about the mb size anymore, so features
> can go in easily as far as I am concerned :-)
> (My personal ruby files are measuring a total of 17 MB files so this
> is also not much)
> 
> "I don't really need the One-Click Installer anymore, and while it
> provides a great starting point and all in one package, it provides more
> stuff than I need, I think that others are in a similar position."
> 
> I really think the one click installer should be made more modular in
> this case. It seems that the windows people are generally unhappy about 
> various things with Windows, and I understand all the frustration, but 
> for me
> being a lazy windows-user it would be really better if they all get
> together and design a compromise which everyone can accept :-)

Well ... right now there are quite a few ways to run Ruby on the Windows 
platform:

1. The One-Click Ruby installer.
2. Instant Rails
3. A package from a vendor whose name I've forgotten that uses an old 
version of Ruby and Rails to interface to PostgreSQL.
4. jRuby plus the Java Runtime Environment
5. IronRuby
6. Cygwin
7. "Yet another Windows installer"

As for "a compromise which everyone can accept", I would hope that at 
some point, that would be IronRuby, since it comes from Microsoft. I 
haven't heard much about the status of IronRuby recently, though.