Re: On DebGem ~ Jan 8, 2009
Wouter, I find your thinking on DebGem a bit overreacted. I think you are taking the product and commercial efforts that a company make as the proposed solution we've all been expecting for a similar problem, which is not. You are considering DebGem to be an outcome provided by the Ruby community, which is not, to this issue.
Phusion is obviously not the Ruby community, but part of it. How I see it, it's great: I applaud that more companies take a look at nice technologies and try to provide their own products. Since I do most of my work with both technologies (and others), Debian and Ruby, I find DebGem worth giving it a try, and if it solves the installation problems of some gems on different systems for me, my employer and the systems I maintain, why not pay for it. However that's all you can expect it to do, solve your gem installation problems and that's it, they are not proposing to change how gems are done or how Ruby libraries are implemented as packages in Debian, they are just a bridge, a shortcut, nothing else, nothing more. And if that bridge works and is well built and maintained, hurrah!
Eh, you're saying exactly the same thing as I am. Really.
I said I wasn't very impressed, /initially/. That is, there was a long list of bugs and horrible misfeatures that you haven't seen, because I suggested they fix them (and they did).
I also said it was a step in the right direction, and that they deserve praise for that. But a "bridge", as you call it (and which it is) is not a solution to a fundamental problem that's part of the ruby development community.
It's helpful, but it's not a /solution/.
Wouter Verhelst
8 Jan 09 at 11:57 am
Wouter, thanks for replying. I must have understood a different point of view, where you were dismissing some credit on the product they were building. But yes, I concur that it's a good step given _for_ the Ruby community.
admin
8 Jan 09 at 12:36 pm