From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-05-11T06:45:38+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Why Ruby? -- A Resource for Promoting Ruby

On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 5:32:16 AM, David wrote:

> Here's an idea. How about a wiki for Wanted/Requested Libraries?

It exists, of course.  That's the problem with Wikis.  Creating a page
like this seems like a great idea, and of course it is in some sense.
But you don't know about it until you ask here.  And for every person
who asks, there's 10 who don't.

I can't remember the name of the page, but MissingLibraries might just
get there.

> Most of the time I had to use good ol' Perl instead of Ruby is because
> of libraries. CPAN is _so_ complete, while Ruby still trails quite 
> behind (not just behind Perl, Python too). Several personal examples of
> mine:

> - a fast/C-based buffer XOR (last time I checked there are several libs
> to do bitwise operation but strangely none can XOR two string buffers);

> - diff algorithms (there are several in Perl);

> - interacting with subversion (there are already several SVN::* Perl
> modules showing up in CPAN);

None of these sound difficult (given that Perl implementations exist).
If I had a need for something like those, and had the time to do so,
I'd port to Ruby as needed.  I don't think the time required would be
all that great, either.

> The Requested Libraries wiki could let people tell what modules they
> need, and let other people vote too what they would like to see most.
> Then yet some other looking for projects will know what is currently on
> demand.

There's no evidence that the Ruby economy works in this way.  People
scratch itches rather than looking for in-demand projects.

Not that anything you've written is a bad idea... :)  A well-known,
up-to-date list of requested libraries would be a great resource.

Cheers,
Gavin