From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-03-22T06:31:53+09:00
Subject: Re: What to gem?

On Monday, March 22, 2004, 7:55:00 AM, Robert wrote:

> Hi,

> I'm trying to get-up-to-date with Ruby community happenings and jump on
> the RubyGems band wagon for an upcoming Rockit release.

> A q arises: What to include in a gem?

> Seems many of the existing gems includes most of the files traditionally
> supplied in a tarball. To me that seems kind of strange since the files
> will end up in a dir which is "hidden" (well not really but mentally)
> from the user and thus not easily available/visible. Also if everything
> goes into the gem (README, docs, samples etc) then it is included in
> every version and there might be bloat/duplication etc. So my instinct
> tells me to only put the necessary files into the gem but then the gem
> cannot replace a normal tarball since users will not get the README,
> docs, samples, tests etc. So in the future we will still need ordinary
> tarballs even if gems take on? Can someone ease my confusion?

I say put everything in.  Don't worry about duplication, because most
people will only keep one version on the machine anyway.

It's better to include docs etc. than not.  Their very presence
encourages the gem interface to find ways of accessing them.

Here's a tip.  Every gem you install, include the flag "--gen-rdoc".
That generates the RDoc for that gem.  Yes, it's in a "hidden"
directory, but here's the trick: run "gem_server" and point your
browser to http://localhost:8808, and you can access all your
installed documentation from one convenient place.

See what I mean?

One day I will implement 'gem --readme', allowing users to read the
README file for any installed gem.  We'll see if it's practical, and
whether it is accepted, but obviously commands like that can only
develop if all the files are there.

In short, there should be no need in the future for tarballs.

Cheers,
Gavin