The real Ruby vs. Python

ruby-talk
1

What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
me... platform maturity.

Python on windows has a broad range of libraries
available for anything you could ever dream of:
Apache, Java, Email, Protocols, GTK, Qt, Tk, OpenGL,
PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc etc etc. As far as Python
library availability for Linux, I really don't know,
as I was only looking for windows stuff last night. My
feeling is that while not being quite as comprehensive
as it's windows offerings it still offers a good
depth.

Ruby, on the other hand, while it has a comprehensive
offering on the Linux platform, is hamstrung on
windows by it's lack in important areas. If libraries
exist, they more often then not are NOT being actively
maintained (my research last night indicated that by
and large more Python libraries are continually
actively maintained). This last point is important
because at one time or another Ruby has HAD libraries
to cover any need, but without active maintenance they
are nearly worthless. I for one will not even look at
a library that hasn't had a release in 2004.

So, this is what it comes down to for me... Which
language offers what I need in terms of libraries? I
decided to go looking after having an excrutiating
time finding just Ruby FastCGI, mod_ruby, and
PostgreSQL libraries which would actually work on
Windows - forget being maintained at all. No luck
though. Even a post to the Ruby-Talk list asking for
help with an attempt to install FastCGI for Ruby
yielded only one reply.

Finally, while the Ruby Gem system is exceptionally
easy to work with and a real boon to Ruby, it doesn't
quite match the ease of installing ANY given Python
library. Every Python windows library for the most
part comes with a windows installer (exe or msi).

Keep in mind that it may be more doable to run Ruby on
windows given substantial C programming/compiling
experience, I don't know. Obviously, if I had the
experience to satisfy that statement I would be able
to answer my own question. : -)

So, for those of us who aren't C gurus and don't run
Linux, Python seems to win out when compared to Ruby.
Which is unfortunate because I really love Ruby, and
don't like a number of Python elements. However,
having the capabilities I need is much more important
than syntax preferences at the moment.

Sadly, in order for Ruby to really take over the world
it will require a more substantial focus on providing
windows compatible libraries and maintaining those
libraries. If Ruby continues to be a Linux-centric
language... I don't know. It just seems to me fairly
obvious that in order to have true dominance you have
to meet the needs of the major platforms. Python does
this moreso then Ruby. And believe me, I wish it were
the other way around.

I'll keep my eye on Ruby, and return when it offers
the essentials I require. But until then I'll be
laboring under a hot Python sun.

Regards, Abe Vionas

···

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2

I for one will not even look at
a library that hasn't had a release in 2004.

This is a very strange comment, in my opinion. A library may simply function as intended and thus, not need an update.

So, this is what it comes down to for me... Which
language offers what I need in terms of libraries?

If you're chief interest is an impressive store of modules, I seriously doubt anything tops the CPAN.

James Edward Gray II

···

On Oct 27, 2004, at 9:11 AM, Abe Vionas_MailingList wrote:

3

Abe Vionas_MailingList wrote:

What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
me... platform maturity.

Python on windows has a broad range of libraries
available for anything you could ever dream of:
Apache, Java, Email, Protocols, GTK, Qt, Tk, OpenGL,
PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc etc etc. As far as Python
library availability for Linux, I really don't know,
as I was only looking for windows stuff last night. My
feeling is that while not being quite as comprehensive
as it's windows offerings it still offers a good
depth.

Ruby, on the other hand, while it has a comprehensive
offering on the Linux platform, is hamstrung on
windows by it's lack in important areas. If libraries
exist, they more often then not are NOT being actively
maintained (my research last night indicated that by
and large more Python libraries are continually
actively maintained). This last point is important
because at one time or another Ruby has HAD libraries
to cover any need, but without active maintenance they
are nearly worthless. I for one will not even look at
a library that hasn't had a release in 2004.

Binary releases are sometimes a problem, most of us are unix users, there are some windows users. I think a few need to get together and compile windows binaries. Hopefully, I will be able to continue to have access to a win2k machine and compile much for the RPA ruby packaging system. Sorry it didnt work out for you. I will be having a GUI for RPA soon. I'm the type of person who does think about Windows users and GUIs for the people who might not know typical compiling routines. Some linuxes just have a packaging system for them to do it for them, I have BSD. I know its not easy on windows, I will get some effort into helping RPA witht he GUI and compiling windows binaries.

What exactly are you needing? What type of developer are you? and What are the type of modules do you regularly use on Windows?

I'm not a frequent windows developer, but I do know a great deal about Windows programming. Effort to solve the Windows area is underway.

So, this is what it comes down to for me... Which
language offers what I need in terms of libraries? I
decided to go looking after having an excrutiating
time finding just Ruby FastCGI, mod_ruby, and
PostgreSQL libraries which would actually work on
Windows - forget being maintained at all. No luck
though. Even a post to the Ruby-Talk list asking for
help with an attempt to install FastCGI for Ruby
yielded only one reply.

I seen your question, I didn't know the answer though. Did you try the maintainer?

Finally, while the Ruby Gem system is exceptionally
easy to work with and a real boon to Ruby, it doesn't
quite match the ease of installing ANY given Python
library. Every Python windows library for the most
part comes with a windows installer (exe or msi).

Would you rather have a GUI, and/or executables which can be installed? hmm thoughts for RPA

Keep in mind that it may be more doable to run Ruby on
windows given substantial C programming/compiling
experience, I don't know. Obviously, if I had the
experience to satisfy that statement I would be able
to answer my own question. : -)

No problem. What problems were you having, besides fastcgi, and I can look in to it on my spare time.

So, for those of us who aren't C gurus and don't run
Linux, Python seems to win out when compared to Ruby.
Which is unfortunate because I really love Ruby, and
don't like a number of Python elements. However,
having the capabilities I need is much more important
than syntax preferences at the moment.

Sadly, in order for Ruby to really take over the world
it will require a more substantial focus on providing
windows compatible libraries and maintaining those
libraries. If Ruby continues to be a Linux-centric
language... I don't know. It just seems to me fairly
obvious that in order to have true dominance you have
to meet the needs of the major platforms. Python does
this moreso then Ruby. And believe me, I wish it were
the other way around.

please use the term, unix-centric. I'm a BSDuser :slight_smile: Thanks.

Also, I agree, Ruby is more towards unix, some of the developers dislike programming on windows, not mentioning any names but he knows who he is :). Its not so much that libraries are unix-centric, but someone needs to compile the libraries on Windows. Most libraries already work well with windows, but its a compiling issue.

I'll keep my eye on Ruby, and return when it offers
the essentials I require. But until then I'll be
laboring under a hot Python sun.

Regards, Abe Vionas

Maybe sometime in the future it will get better for Windows users, we can only hope.
If you have any questions, drop me an email.

David Ross

···

--
Hazzle free packages for Ruby?
RPA is available from http://www.rubyarchive.org/

4

you make the point excellently.
noone takes on the job, and therefore..
yeah. noone takes on the job.

:frowning:

Alex

···

On Wed, Oct 27, 2004 at 11:11:19PM +0900, Abe Vionas_MailingList wrote:

I'll keep my eye on Ruby, and return when it offers
the essentials I require. But until then I'll be
laboring under a hot Python sun.

5

I tried using the basic Ruby for windows package and got a few
mysterious errors ("readline.dll not found" when running irb).

I backed that out and used Cygwin to install ruby. Now it runs perfectly.

I was able to install RubyGems and start exploring that as well. It
didn't work with the "native" Ruby, but is completely seamless (to my
cursory examination) when using Ruby under Cygwin.

Cygwin, by explantion, is a POSIX layer on top of Windows. It adds
aptget/rpm type functionality ... you download a small installer and
it downloads package descriptions for all the (Li|U)nixy stuff. It
handles downloading, installing, versioning, dependencies.

http://www.cygwin.com/

···

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:11:19 +0900, Abe Vionas_MailingList <mailinglist_abe@yahoo.com> wrote:

What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
me... platform maturity.

Python on windows has a broad range of libraries
available for anything you could ever dream of:
Apache, Java, Email, Protocols, GTK, Qt, Tk, OpenGL,
PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc etc etc. As far as Python
library availability for Linux, I really don't know,
as I was only looking for windows stuff last night. My
feeling is that while not being quite as comprehensive
as it's windows offerings it still offers a good
depth.

--
Howard M. Lewis Ship
Independent J2EE / Open-Source Java Consultant
Creator, Jakarta Tapestry
Creator, Jakarta HiveMind

6

Ironically that should be a good thing!

It's a poor indicator. A lib may be "relatively perfected" and need not be
changed ever again. People are too caught up on changing things. Get
something to work well, then start a new project.

But I do hear you --since the above is rarely ever done.

2 cents,
T.

···

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 10:11 am, Abe Vionas_MailingList wrote:

Ruby, on the other hand, while it has a comprehensive
offering on the Linux platform, is hamstrung on
windows by it's lack in important areas. If libraries
exist, they more often then not are NOT being actively
maintained (my research last night indicated that by
and large more Python libraries are continually
actively maintained). This last point is important
because at one time or another Ruby has HAD libraries
to cover any need, but without active maintenance they
are nearly worthless. I for one will not even look at
a library that hasn't had a release in 2004.

7

This bites me quite often as well, though I have not given up. There are
likely hordes of unwashed masses like me, not entirely adept at
source-patch-recompile-rebuild, who never even get started with Ruby because
of the kinds of issues Abe describes.

Their loss or Ruby's? Unfortunately, probably both.

I feel gems is one of the keys to getting past this. Gems can make my local
(Windows) Ruby install feel like
  - a single plug-in system
  - pulling together 'requires'
  - incorporating documentation from a single starting point
  - including compatible versions and dependencies

It would be great if gems was part of the standard Ruby distribution, if RPA
could use gems as its underlying package manager (reducing confusion for
newBs), and if RPA could then also take on the role of Release Manager for
Ruby itself.

Some misc thoughts:

- Could gems ALSO cover binaries AND binary/library dependencies?

- Could the gems RDOCs have links to some gems-aligned community
documentation site, as someone else proposed here recently?

···

"Abe Vionas_MailingList" <mailinglist_abe@yahoo.com> wrote

What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
me... platform maturity.

8

I don't have much to disagree with here -- I think that Ruby's support
for Windows leaves quite a bit to be desired, but will note that it's
mostly on things that have historically been troublesome on Windows in
any case (MySQL support, etc.) and that Win32 API support is extremely
strong, although we need more Win32 binary builds of things like
Win32::Event and Win32::Service. The following statement, however, is
(IMO) problematic:

I for one will not even look at a library that hasn't had a release in 2004.

I work on and maintain several libraries. Text::Format hasn't been
changed -- because it does its job well and doesn't need further
changing, yet. MIME::Types has had minor changes to try to make it
more compliant with known lists, but it will see at most two updates a
year (and probably fewer than that when the three features I want to
add are put in: filemagic support, shared-mime support, and reading
existing mimecap files). Just because a program or library is old
doesn't mean that it's out of date. It means that few or no bugs have
been reported against the program or library and no feature requests
have been made to drive development.

Archive::Tar::Minitar -- never intended to be a full tar replacement
-- may see one more feature release and then only periodic releases to
make sure that it's compatible with the current version of Ruby. Why?
Because it simply *works*. It does what it's supposed to do. If it
doesn't work as it is and what it claims to do, then submit a bug!
Don't assume that because it hasn't been updated in 2004 that it's out
of date or unworkable.

-austin

···

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:11:19 +0900, Abe Vionas_MailingList <mailinglist_abe@yahoo.com> wrote:
--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca
: as of this email, I have [ 5 ] Gmail invitations

9

Hi,

Python on windows has a broad range of libraries
available for anything you could ever dream of:
Apache, Java, Email, Protocols, GTK, Qt, Tk, OpenGL,
PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc etc etc. As far as Python
library availability for Linux, I really don't know,
as I was only looking for windows stuff last night. My
feeling is that while not being quite as comprehensive
as it's windows offerings it still offers a good
depth.

The grass is greener at the neighbor's. :slight_smile:

Seriously, Python does seem to have more libs on Windows, or maybe, a
couple of more important libraries (like mod_python?).

I like Ruby-ODBC a lot. With it you could access MySQL, PostgreSQL,
Firebird, etc. It's a very nice library on Linux and on Windows.

As for mod_ruby I think that some people do have it on Windows, but
it's not supported by the community or for the community. Too bad.

ERuby seems to have a compiled version for Windows, but with CGI it's
kind of slow.

FastCGI is a mistery for me, but I wish it was easily available on Windows.

Sometimes we forget that Python has it share of problems as well. Some
Ruby libraries are very well supported or have been created very well
in the first place.

The only issue with Windows that I have is that I wish Ruby had better
threading (native thread?) and I/O did not lock or worked as expected
(see the FreeRIDE debugger issues for example.) Other than that, I'm
relatively happy with the cross-platform opportunity provided by Ruby.

Cheers,
Joao

10

Abe Vionas_MailingList <mailinglist_abe@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<20041027141106.45307.qmail@web90010.mail.scd.yahoo.com>...

What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
me... platform maturity.

Python on windows has a broad range of libraries
available for anything you could ever dream of:
Apache, Java, Email, Protocols, GTK, Qt, Tk, OpenGL,
PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc etc etc.

Ruby has these, too.

Ruby, on the other hand, while it has a comprehensive
offering on the Linux platform, is hamstrung on
windows by it's lack in important areas.

Such as?

If libraries
exist, they more often then not are NOT being actively
maintained (my research last night indicated that by
and large more Python libraries are continually
actively maintained).

Again, you don't state specifically which libraries.

This last point is important
because at one time or another Ruby has HAD libraries
to cover any need, but without active maintenance they
are nearly worthless. I for one will not even look at
a library that hasn't had a release in 2004.

Still no info.

So, this is what it comes down to for me... Which
language offers what I need in terms of libraries? I
decided to go looking after having an excrutiating
time finding just Ruby FastCGI, mod_ruby, and
PostgreSQL libraries which would actually work on
Windows - forget being maintained at all. No luck
though. Even a post to the Ruby-Talk list asking for
help with an attempt to install FastCGI for Ruby
yielded only one reply.

Ok, so we've come to the crux of your post - you had problems with
PostgreSQL and FastCGI. So, from that you've drawn the conclusion
that Python has superior library support on Windows?

Finally, while the Ruby Gem system is exceptionally
easy to work with and a real boon to Ruby, it doesn't
quite match the ease of installing ANY given Python
library. Every Python windows library for the most
part comes with a windows installer (exe or msi).

You can thank Mark Hammond for the libraries, and Sophos (aka
ActiveState) for the packaging. Ruby doesn't have a company backing
it (yet).

Keep in mind that it may be more doable to run Ruby on
windows given substantial C programming/compiling
experience, I don't know. Obviously, if I had the
experience to satisfy that statement I would be able
to answer my own question. : -)

Between ruby/dl, WIN32API and OLE + WMI you can do just about anything
you need without a C compiler.

So, for those of us who aren't C gurus and don't run
Linux, Python seems to win out when compared to Ruby.

WHAT SPECIFICALLY ARE YOU MISSING?

Which is unfortunate because I really love Ruby, and
don't like a number of Python elements. However,
having the capabilities I need is much more important
than syntax preferences at the moment.

Sadly, in order for Ruby to really take over the world
it will require a more substantial focus on providing
windows compatible libraries and maintaining those
libraries.

Start with http://www.rubyforge.org/projects/win32utils\. There's a
Windows installer, too, so you don't have to compile anything
yourself.

If Ruby continues to be a Linux-centric
language... I don't know. It just seems to me fairly
obvious that in order to have true dominance you have
to meet the needs of the major platforms. Python does
this moreso then Ruby. And believe me, I wish it were
the other way around.

Without any specific examples, this is nothing but hand waving.

I'll keep my eye on Ruby, and return when it offers
the essentials I require.

Which we have narrowed down to Postgres and FastCGI.

But until then I'll be
laboring under a hot Python sun.

You're laboring under worse than that I fear.

- Dan

11

As a windows user I feel I should chip in here. I don't think I'm
feeling as unloved as the OP and I can live with a little unix
centricity but I wouldn't argue with Ruby becoming more Win-friendly.
I think the one-click installer is a great step in that direction but
I guess there are others.

I have windows programming experience but it's mostly either very old,
rusty, and not terribly relevant (e.g. C/C++ on Windows 3.0) or new
and shallow (VS.NET & C#). Most of my recent programming career has
been Java.

I'd like to help though and, if there is a Ruby on Windows community,
I would get involved.

Regards,

Matt

···

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:39:48 +0900, Alexander Kellett <ruby-lists@lypanov.net> wrote:

you make the point excellently.
noone takes on the job, and therefore..
yeah. noone takes on the job.

12

Are there downsides to this approach for Windows users?

T.

···

On Wednesday 27 October 2004 10:48 am, Howard Lewis Ship wrote:

I tried using the basic Ruby for windows package and got a few
mysterious errors ("readline.dll not found" when running irb).

I backed that out and used Cygwin to install ruby. Now it runs perfectly.

I was able to install RubyGems and start exploring that as well. It
didn't work with the "native" Ruby, but is completely seamless (to my
cursory examination) when using Ruby under Cygwin.

Cygwin, by explantion, is a POSIX layer on top of Windows. It adds
aptget/rpm type functionality ... you download a small installer and
it downloads package descriptions for all the (Li|U)nixy stuff. It
handles downloading, installing, versioning, dependencies.

http://www.cygwin.com/

13

you make the point excellently.
noone takes on the job, and therefore..
yeah. noone takes on the job.

I've tried a bit. I've got MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite/Ruby
compiled for Windows. The PostgreSQL I haven't released because I
haven't tested it thoroughly. Although I'll probably release the
PostgreSQL one and let the community test it for me :slight_smile:

My next project is OpenSSL so that I can use the Ruby SSH project.
But that is going to be awhile (I'm in the middle of moving from
Arizona to Washington).

The thing I've noticed is that the extension library code (the C code)
usually has dependencies on things that are not defined in Windows.
That is what takes the most time to get around. But the good news is
that it is a small minority of projects that have this problem.

···

--
Justin Rudd
http://seagecko.org/thoughts/

14

David Ross wrote:

Binary releases are sometimes a problem, most of us are unix users,
there are some windows users.

I am a big proponent of being cross-platform *and* making things as easy as
possible for end users to install and use. So, this is not intended to start
any kind of competition or flame-war, mostly I'm just curious...

When I see the statement "most of us are unix users, there are some windows
users" it makes me wonder whether or not this is really true. I'm involved
in two major cross-platform Ruby projects: FreeRIDE and wxRuby. In both
cases the windows downloads are higher than all the other platforms
combined.

It would be interesting if there was a more reliable way to gauge Ruby's use
on various platforms, but I don't know how that could be done.

Curt

15

Its Me wrote:

···

"Abe Vionas_MailingList" <mailinglist_abe@yahoo.com> wrote

What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
me... platform maturity.
   
This bites me quite often as well, though I have not given up. There are
likely hordes of unwashed masses like me, not entirely adept at
source-patch-recompile-rebuild, who never even get started with Ruby because
of the kinds of issues Abe describes.

Their loss or Ruby's? Unfortunately, probably both.

I feel gems is one of the keys to getting past this. Gems can make my local
(Windows) Ruby install feel like
- a single plug-in system
- pulling together 'requires'
- incorporating documentation from a single starting point
- including compatible versions and dependencies

It would be great if gems was part of the standard Ruby distribution, if RPA
could use gems as its underlying package manager (reducing confusion for
newBs), and if RPA could then also take on the role of Release Manager for
Ruby itself.

Some misc thoughts:

- Could gems ALSO cover binaries AND binary/library dependencies?

- Could the gems RDOCs have links to some gems-aligned community
documentation site, as someone else proposed here recently?

RPA and RubyGems have different aspects in implementation, so it would not be compatible/easy. Now that I have a RPA QA team for windows, we should have binaries put together soon. Good support for software. :slight_smile:

David Ross
--
Hazzle free packages for Ruby?
RPA is available from http://www.rubyarchive.org/

16

I feel gems is one of the keys to getting past this. Gems can make my
local (Windows) Ruby install feel like
- a single plug-in system
- pulling together 'requires'
- incorporating documentation from a single starting point
- including compatible versions and dependencies

The latter is a property of package repository administration, not of RubyGems.

It would be great if gems was part of the standard Ruby distribution, if RPA
could use gems as its underlying package manager (reducing confusion for
newBs),

This is something we (the RPA team) consider infeasible; RubyGems does
not have the capabilities we believe necessary. This is both in terms
of RubyGems presently being less technically advanced than rpa-base,
and in terms of one key capability: The ability for RPA to modify the
technology to suit our needs.

The key aspect of RPA is providing *maintainenance* for packages, and
not just for the packaging. The idea is that you can take a "blessed"
(core) RPA package, and you'll know:
- That the packaged software itself is of reasonable quality
- Security issues will be fixed
- That as far as is reasonably possible, the code will be fixed for
compatibility with newer versions of other packages
- We'll do bugfixes of packages for newer versions of Ruby
- There is a contact point for all the trivial little patches and
bugfixes that make the difference between a "well worn" package and an
annoying green one. This contact point remains even if the original
author lost interest in the software

This is a large task. The present rpa-base and package set only
scratch the surface of what we're trying to do. We're presently
looking at the next step in the enabling this:

- A new version of rpa-base that support the development cycle for the
above much better (integration with version control system to make
maintenance of code uniform etc)
- Documentation to help more people be able to do RPA packaging
- Documentation and checklists for helping software quality
- Building a review team for doing code review for code we import into the RPA
- Support for binary packages, to make Ruby deployment on Windows etc easier
- Increase in team size

As this stuff gets done, we'll have more to do, of course.

and if RPA could then also take on the role of Release Manager for
Ruby itself.

We may be willing to do this, but

Some misc thoughts:

- Could gems ALSO cover binaries AND binary/library dependencies?

RPA is working towards this.

- Could the gems RDOCs have links to some gems-aligned community
documentation site, as someone else proposed here recently?

It is not clear to me what you want here. Cross-links between
packages is certainly interesting for RPA, at least.

Eivind.

···

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:09:05 +0900, Its Me <itsme213@hotmail.com> wrote:
--
Hazzle free packages for Ruby?
RPA is available from http://www.rubyarchive.org/

17

> What it comes down to is what it's coming down to for
> me... platform maturity.

This bites me quite often as well, though I have not given up. There are
likely hordes of unwashed masses like me, not entirely adept at
source-patch-recompile-rebuild, who never even get started with Ruby because
of the kinds of issues Abe describes.

Their loss or Ruby's? Unfortunately, probably both.

I feel gems is one of the keys to getting past this. Gems can make my local
(Windows) Ruby install feel like
  - a single plug-in system
  - pulling together 'requires'
  - incorporating documentation from a single starting point
  - including compatible versions and dependencies

This is the vision. Above all, "really freaking easy". That's our focus.

Some misc thoughts:

- Could gems ALSO cover binaries AND binary/library dependencies?

- Could the gems RDOCs have links to some gems-aligned community
documentation site, as someone else proposed here recently?

Great ideas. The binary/library dependency thing will require a lot
of thought, but it will definitely come up in the future. We have
limited support for binaries now, but it needs a lot of filling out.

We're building a site for RubyGems (hopefully to be released within
the next few weeks) which I think will excite you. More details to
come....

Thanks for the great ideas and enthusiasm.

···

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:09:05 +0900, Its Me <itsme213@hotmail.com> wrote:

"Abe Vionas_MailingList" <mailinglist_abe@yahoo.com> wrote

--

Chad Fowler
http://chadfowler.com

http://rubygems.rubyforge.org (over 20,000 gems served!)

18

Matt Mower wrote:

···

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:39:48 +0900, Alexander Kellett ><ruby-lists@lypanov.net> wrote:

you make the point excellently.
noone takes on the job, and therefore..
yeah. noone takes on the job.

As a windows user I feel I should chip in here. I don't think I'm
feeling as unloved as the OP and I can live with a little unix
centricity but I wouldn't argue with Ruby becoming more Win-friendly. I think the one-click installer is a great step in that direction but
I guess there are others.

I have windows programming experience but it's mostly either very old,
rusty, and not terribly relevant (e.g. C/C++ on Windows 3.0) or new
and shallow (VS.NET & C#). Most of my recent programming career has
been Java.

I'd like to help though and, if there is a Ruby on Windows community,
I would get involved.

Regards,

Matt

Would you be willing to help me package binaries for RPA? :slight_smile: I can help you re-learn if needed.

David Ross
--
Hazzle free packages for Ruby?
RPA is available from http://www.rubyarchive.org/

19

the main problem is that even while i was on
windows i still had no clue how to help out,
build packages etc. i certainly don't have a
spare copy of vs.net or anything lying around
here so i'd be able to do, well, exactly nothing.

Alex

···

On Wed, Oct 27, 2004 at 11:51:33PM +0900, Matt Mower wrote:

As a windows user I feel I should chip in here. I don't think I'm
feeling as unloved as the OP and I can live with a little unix
centricity but I wouldn't argue with Ruby becoming more Win-friendly.
I think the one-click installer is a great step in that direction but
I guess there are others.

20

cygwin is huge has an awful interface and
has severe problems with having multiple
cygwin1.dll's on the same system.

native compiles are by far my preference.
windows far from a single platform is *FAR*
more fragmented that linux will ever be.

how many ruby windows sub-platforms exist
now in total? four or is it five now? how
can anyone be expected to help when all of
them suck in there own little way? (e.g,
1-click doesn't have a standard package
thats in base ruby - curses)

Alex (who can't wait any longer to get his ibook and
      remove both windows *and* linux at long last)

···

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 12:07:10AM +0900, trans. (T. Onoma) wrote:

Are there downsides to this approach for Windows users?