Re: {Detached} Mysql Gem and beyond: Fixing, Supporting and Celebrating

On Sep 21, 8:02m, Edmond Kachale <[e-mail]>
wrote:
>
> But when I said "The whole gem is messed up seriously.", I actually meant
> that. It might not be you, but something else beyond your imagination,
> something else beyond your control. It might be the change in the OS
> architecture that has "messed up" the cool gem. And above all, as you
> rightly put it, it might be the user's way of installing essential
> applications and libraries. All these may "mess up" the nice mysql gem. All
> in all, I was necessarily pushing the whole blame on the developer. (May be
> my tone was wrong).
>
> I install ruby and mysql as follows:
> sudo apt-get install ruby mysql-server libmysql-ruby mysql-client
> mysql-server ruby libopenssl-ruby mysql-server-core rubygems
>

If you installed libmysql-ruby then you're not using mysql gem but
Debian packaged version of it which has been tailored for mysql
dependencies.

> Personally, there was only one time mysql gem worked for me. It was last
> year, and the gem was an earlier version. Thereafter, it has never worked
> for me. When I googled, I found that other people had similar problems with
> the mysql gem (Check this one out:http://bit.ly/diSVJP).
>

There has been lot of problems where it mentions mysql gem, either on
Windows or other platforms. But there has been more success than real
reports of these failures.

Actually a report of mysql gem bug in MySQL forum do not help get the
issue fixed. Instead, reporting here (ruby-talk) is highly likely
receive more attention.

There has been lot of pain about maintaining a gem that is not even my
code.

Perhaps I should leave everybody using the extension directly, as tmtm
(the author) did.

Also note that mysql/ruby has been "dead" by the author for about 2
years. he decided to invest time on ruby/mysql library instead:

http://github.com/tmtm/ruby-mysql

> Every Rubyster knows and appreciates that this gem is cool and significant.
> I think what is needed is to get more support from the Ruby community and
> work on the *"usual"* errors ((RuntimeError) ERROR: *Failed to build gem
> native extension*). My feeling is any gem should be easy to install even for
> *"non-developers"* (such as software deployment officers) just by the touch
> of the "*gem install"* command. he gem should resolve all the dependencies
> and supporting libraries within itself.
>

The usual errors are simple, but I believe people needs to understand
what those are.

For example, the lack of mysql development dependencies can make the
compilation process fail.

The lack of ruby development headers and libraries will make the
compilation process fail.

Even worse, the lack of compiler can make th ecompilation process fail
(yes, you need build-essentials)

So, you see, you get all that on Debian/Ubuntu distros, more than any
other platform.

> Let everyone get me clear, I am not blaming the mysql gem core-developer or
> anyone for anything. But I think we can help our fellow friend in fixing the
> gem. We can folk it on GitHub <http://github.com/luislavena/mysql-gem>, play
> with it on our local machines and share our experiences with the core
> developer, just as other gems have received similar attention. Then we can
> celebrate the victory together as a fraternity.

Just to make it clear: there is no core developer, I just maintain the
abandoned work from tmtm (the author).

You can fork it and do whatever you want, I'll happily integrate the
changes, but notice that what you get by the mysql gem is pretty much
exact experience of attempting to install the extension directly.

The gem shape is just a skeleton to ease the usage.

--
Luis Lavena