From: Luis Lavena Date: 2009-06-06T08:30:06+09:00 Subject: Re: Compiling Ruby 1.9.1 zlib issue on Windows On 5 jun, 09:55, "J. D." wrote: > Luis/Roger: > > I know you both have been working heavily on the installers. I was > curious if either of you have thought of the following (for the future): > > Rather than packaging Ruby in a default setup package, perhaps provide a > basic install gui that houses what would be necessary to install, > expand, and setup ruby from a remote location. In the install gui, > specifications could be made for what "additional features" a person > wishes to include with his or her ruby package. > What you're commenting is in the lines of a net based installer, like Google Chrome, earlier versions of Firefox and some other looks like MSYS and MinGW itself. While the idea is tempting and sounds cool, the amount of work to maintain those netinstalls is about the same. Been building software strictly for Windows since 96 and dealing with installers has been the Aquiles heel for every application under the sun. Right now I just want to focus on getting what I call "Runtime" (Ruby + RubyGems) out of the box asap. Then we can focus on different ways to wrap that runtime package with net installers that can opt in different components or packages. Also, there is another problem: more options means more clicks. Right now I've managed to reduce the clicks to 5... from the original 9 reported here: http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=22347&group_id=167&atid=715 I can tell you, reduce click is really hard, so I'm focusing my energy on that! ;-) > If I'm not making sense I could clarify my thoughts better. I'm in no > way, shape or form trying to make extra work for either of you. :) > Thank God :-D > I was just curious as to how you saw the one-click installer being used > for the future.. > Something of my above comments has been outlined here: http://rubyinstaller.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Roadmap Since move to MinGW will break lot of gems under the sun, I'm working on making the transition the less painful as possible. For that purpose, I've created rake-compiler project and helped other gem authors provide proper and current binaries for some projects. Once I can make it more "stable" (hopefuly in the next couple of weeks), I'll make an official and supported release of MinGW-based Ruby for 1.8.6 at least. Ruby 1.9.1 will have to wait since it's been failing it's bundled tests on Windows. Hope this information shed some light to the future of Ruby on Windows (and google pick it up). Regards, -- Luis Lavena