Comment 39 for bug 145267

2008/8/4 Lucas Nussbaum <email address hidden>:
> Some notes in random order:
> The install / install / uninstall problem you mention is a gem problem.
> I think that it should be solved at the rubygem side, not specifically
> for Debian. That's over-engineered. Have you talked to the gems
> developers about that? Maybe you could implement a solution directly in
> rubygems.

To do that would essentially require duplicating much of the
alternatives system within rubygems. Feel free to code that up if you
have a few weeks or months available.

So I can have a 91 line fix in the packaging and hit Intrepid or
several hundred within rubygems which nobody seems that keen on
writing and get nowhere.

The gem installation problem is fixed within Debian Policy, the system
is kept clean of dangling links and broken Gems and from the user's
perspective they just see a system that works.

When rubygems finally get around to implementing something that stops
gem1.8 and gem1.9 running into each other then we can delete the two
small procedures that implement the system.

It's just a patch, Lucas, to make Gems work better in a packaging
environment. It will allow people to switch ruby interpreters with
greater ease. With good packaging people can do that, and that will
give them a reason to use the packages.

> Please check what has been done in Debian recently with the rubygems and
> ruby1.9 packages. How rubygems is managed changed a bit. See source
> packages: libgems-ruby >= 1.2.0-1 and ruby1.9 >= 1.9.0.1-5. (ie, the
> versions in intrepid, not hardy).

If you looked at the package you'd notice that the code is based upon
the latest Debian package in Intrepid (which is missing a default
rubygems package BTW). Using the new 'operating_system.rb' override
facility simplifies the package immensely by getting all the policy
defaults in one place as well as allowing the user home area gems
facility to work that is currently crippled by the Debian packaging.

The user home area gem system is used by the 'gems:install' task
within Rails 2.1

--
Neil Wilson