[debian-devel:17610] Re: Ruby 1.9.1 package release plan

[akira yamada <akira@debian.org>]

> With your plan ([2]), the new ruby1.9 package (using ruby 1.9.1) would
> break all the existing libs named *-ruby1.9. Those libs would have to be
> transitionned so that files are installed elsewhere (moving files from
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.0 to /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1). Transitionning all those
> libraries, and doing it again for ruby1.9.2 or 1.9.3 (when the API
> changes) is going to be extremely painful. With the current amount of
> manpower, it will probably take a few months before ruby libs are no longer
> broken in unstable.

But squeez can include only one Ruby 1.9.x package.
Or we shoud have some ruby1.9.x packages on squeeze?

> Sure, typing ruby1.9.1 is harder than typing ruby for the user. We could

I think that complexty is a problem...

> use alternatives so that the user can select the version of ruby he
> wants, but then we would have to fix all the ruby applications that use
> /usr/bin/ruby first (so that they hardcode the version of ruby they want
> to work with).

I don't like alternatives for that usage.
Users assume all alternatives works fine with all other programs.
(ruby1.9(.0) foo.rb, ruby1.9(.1) foo.rb and ruby1.9(.2) works as the same.)

We should have standard "ruby" for users and packages.
I think that "/usr/bin/ruby" should be provided by a package
such as ruby-default.

-- 
ay