From: Jim Freeze <jfreeze@...>
Date: 2002-07-26T11:30:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Opinion on Ruby maturity, the missing things

On Fri, Jul 26, 2002 at 10:10:05AM +0900, John Carter wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Jim Freeze wrote:
> 
> > I'm not sure ruby should take sides here. There are plenty fine
> > ones to choose from. Don't make others pay the expense.
> 
> Who needs to take sides? If there are two prime time ready modules for the 
> same niche, bundle both.

I know what you are saying, and I am trying to not be resistant to change,
but there are several issues here that make bundling gui's ineffective.
My experience has been that the ruby part is very easily obtained and
installed. The hard part is getting the library installed. 
And after causing code bloat with the bundling, you will be lucky
if you got the version that your downloaders needed.

Instead of adopting a 'nice little commercial package' model, I 
think your comments about a distribution below make a better solution.

> The aim is to get to a state where you can exchange scripts that will 
> "work out of the box" with the standard bundle. Currently too much of RAA 
> and far too much of CPAN will only work once you have download a long 
> list of modules, sometimes entering into circular tangles of mutually 
> incompatible versions.
> 
> Large footprint for the developer is not a problem. I _love_ having a rich
> library to pick and choose from. A 20Gb drive is smaller than you 
> can buy at the moment. 
> 
> Having developed something I want a way of navigating the module "require"
> tree to package up a small footprint package to install on the users
> machine
> 
> There is a niche in the Ruby environment for "distro" makers. Like RedHat 
> / Debian / SUSE / Slackware / ... download, resolve dependency 
> conflicts and bundle up literally thousands of Linux apps for you to 
> enjoy, there is a niche for a super rich Ruby distro.
> 

I agree that Ruby needs a good solution here. This is one of the 
main topics discussed (and we even had a brainstorming session) at
the first ruby conference.

Boy I hope ruby does not end up with the fractured model that
linux has ended up with. Diversity in this scenario is not a source
of strength. I think unity is needed. I would rather see ruby with
a unified solution (like CPAN or BSD). We definetly have the language
to create a good solution.


-- 
Jim Freeze
If only I had something clever to say for my comment...
~