From: Marc Heiler <shevegen@...>
Date: 2009-08-31T22:39:14+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby 1.9 compilation - question

> This 1.9 install royally messed up by 1.8.7 install, among other things.
> I've abandoned it completely. Don't have time for this nonsense.

One strategy - out of possibly many - is to use versioned directories, 
similar to how GoboLinux http://gobolinux.org/ does it. Then installs 
like the one you mentioned have no chance to "mess" up anything at all.

> Ah...but getting 1.8.7 working again was a nightmare in itself. Ruby 1.9
> just won't disappear. Arrrrgh! Sad.

If you stick to solutions like the FHS, then the one to blame is not 
ruby,
but FHS - or you, in this case. People who are not afraid to compile 
from
source should not complain too loudly if their solution is crappy. ;)

On Gobolinux (or more generally AppDir strategy) all one does would be

  rm -rf /Programs/Ruby/1.9.1

and gone it is (ok, on Gobolinux you need to remove the symlinks, but 
this can be tied to an event-listener, so the above is still valid).

Most other strategies (such as using a package manager)
are less elegant than the above ideal of versioned "app dirs".
(But I do admit that there might be a few other problems, with the 
biggest one possibly that not many people will use this setup, because 
the FHS is ubiquitous and won't disappear. Personally however, I use it 
since 5 years at least for ruby, and it works nicely.)
-- 
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