Ruby on Rails support in Intrepid - call for reviewers and cheerleaders

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:46:34 -0700 Mathias Gug <mathiaz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
>On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 05:58:39PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>> On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:01:26 -0700 Mathias Gug <mathiaz at ubuntu.com> 
wrote:
...
>> >The make a parallel with python, the gem command is similar to 
>> easy_install.
>> 
>> Which we generally patch into submission when we find it.  In 
Debian/Ubuntu 
>> if ezsetup is installing external Python modules it's bug.
>
>Do you mean that ezsetup tries to install debian packages of the python
>modules ?

No ezsetup tries to download and install modules from outside the packaging 
system.  Ideally we'd patch that out and the provide proper dependencies to 
proper packages through the package management system.

>> >Neil's proposal is to improve the gem command (from the libgems-ruby
>> >package) so that binaries are installed in /usr/local/bin (thus they're
>> >on the default path). If you'd use install gems from the upstream
>> >source, binaries would be installed in /usr/bin/. The goal is that gems
>> >installed by the gem command don't interfere with ruby libraries and
>> >binaries installed by debian packages.
>> 
>> Do you mean NOT on the default path then?
>
>No. The binaries included in the gem are installed in /usr/local/bin/,
>which is on the default PATH.

Doesn't that mean they'll get used in place of installed system packages?

>> >Upstream provided the necessary hooks to do so and Neil used the
>> >update-alternatives system to handle multiple version of gems being
>> >installed in /usr/local/bin/ rather than /usr/bin/.
>> >
>> It does sound like progress.  As long as we aren't actually packaing the 
>> gems themselves it seems like a reasonable way to go until Ruby Gems 
grows 
>> enough features to support proper integration of gems into the distro 
>> package space.
>
>Exactly. Neil's proposal is *not* aimed at integrating gems with the
>distro package space but rather improve gem installation from source so
>that it doesn't conflict with distro packages. Proper integration is a
>long-term goal and we're looking at the Intrepid timeframe. 
>
>The current rubygem package provides a gem command that installs gem
>binaries in /var/lib/rubyX.Y/bin/ which is not part of the default PATH.
>Neil's proposal uses update-alternative to make these binaries available
>in /usr/loca/bin/ so that they're located in the default PATH. End
>users won't have to modify their environment and gems will work OOTB.
>
I can see how this doesn't conflict from an installation perspective, but 
unless I misremember where that is in the path, it will be used in place of 
anything provided through the distro.  Am I missing something?

Scott K