From: Mark Hubbart <discord@...>
Date: 2004-05-01T03:31:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Opportunities and pitfalls; was "Introducing myself - Sascha Ebach"


On Apr 30, 2004, at 7:35 AM, Mike Calder wrote:

> A word of warning from a potential friend.  Please don't take this 
> negatively,
> because I think you have something, and I'd like to help.  If you can 
> read
> through to the end, there's a modest proposal.
[snip!!!]

I very much agree with you.

Regarding packaging: It would be nice if there was a simple way to 
build ruby in a way that would be nice for packaging it up. I've been 
gestating a project idea in my head for a while now, for a package 
building system for Ruby on Mac OS X; It would have functions for 
downloading various source packages, building them, and packaging them 
up in a native installer. There would be options for packaging up Ruby 
with WXWidgets, Fox, Tk, GraphicsMagick, etc... This would make it 
simple for someone to make the latest version of Ruby available to the 
Mac OS X public. I would assume that most of the work would be in 
getting the thing working; it could then be ported to other platforms 
by adding installer package formats.

Anyone want to help with that? :) I need to get on the stick and 
produce something on that.

A couple days ago, I told a friend how I had been using Ruby a lot 
lately, and what a great language it is; he started quizzing me on it's 
features. became somewhat embarrassed, as many of the features that he 
asked about, I had to tell him no. And it sounded like he had been 
seriously considering checking it out, based on my description. But 
without the features, he's sticking with perl and php.

Here's a question: Is there any sort of a roadmap for ruby libraries?

If not, I think there should be. There should be a place for 
brainstorming about necessary libraries, where we can set up timetables 
and discuss setting up rubyforge projects. Sort of a centralized ruby 
library development area. This would encourage people to find an area 
where they can really help, on an important library that ruby should 
have. This would also encourage single-solution libraries, rather than, 
say, five different competing versions.

Okay, that's enough for now. :)

cheers,
--Mark