From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2002-10-23T16:19:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby.bah! (was Re: XMLParser, NQXML... and also RAA.succ)

In article <20021023044635.EPYB16517.tomts23-srv.bellnexxia.net@hogwarts>,
Austin Ziegler  <austin@halostatue.ca> wrote:
>
>Okay. This hits on perhaps my biggest frustration with Ruby right
>now. I *love* this language. It makes sense in a way that I haven't
>really found any other language to make sense ... BUT!
>
>Perl has ONE documentation format, POD. It's old, it's ugly, and
>it's a sumbitch to do anything "nice" with, but bedamned it WORKS.
>
>Ruby, on the other hand, has two going on three different formats,
>if I'm understanding what Sean is saying correctly. None of which,
>by the way, appear to be compatible. Right now, if I want
>documentation for a package, I have to keep rd2 and rdoc handy. I'd
>probably have to keep rubydoc's CLI handy, too, but it's currently
>vapour. I settled on rdoc for my personal documentation efforts
>because it Just Works.
>
>Similarly, there are no fewer than four packaging/installation
>systems available or soon to be available: RubyGems, setup.rb, rpkg,
>and (again, currently vapourous) rubynet. I'm sure I've missed one
>or two. What I've settled on is a variant of what Dave includes with
>rdoc, that might be one of the two variants included with setup.rb
>-- but I'm not quite sure.
>
>As to multiples of other functionality providers, I don't have as
>much of an issue, except for the database libraries.[1] But
>packaging/installation systems and documentation systems are
>fundamentals. 

I have to strongly agree with your sentiments here.  I generally tend to 
dislike centralized planning, but this is an instance where I think we're 
gonna need some.  I really think that whatever packaging package we go 
with and whatever documentation system we go with should be included in 
the next major release (1.8) (and only _one_ of each should be included).
Yes, this effectively kills the competing packages, but in these two cases 
I think that needs to happen.

I suspect that the way to go about it is to say, for example, to each of 
the packaging entries that we want to settle on a packaging system by some 
date in the not-so-distant future and that each packaging camp should 
submit their best entry by some date that allows folks to play with the 
entries a fair amount and then we stage a vote on RubyGarden.  The vote 
probably would not be the final say, but it could serve as a guide to Matz 
(or someone he delegates the task to) who would  make the final decision.


Phil