On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 03:00:45 +0900, Richard Kilmer <rich / infoether.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/04 11:42 AM, "Eivind Eklund" <eeklund / gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > If we can make this possible, it would be great - I think it could
> > help raise adoption of Ruby a lot.  Conversely, if we make this
> > harder, we lower the adoption.
> 
> I think you are ignoring a very important platform...Win32. 

I don't get it.  Are you trying to say that being able to export other
packaging formats is in conflict with Win32?  If so, I don't get it -
I see this as fairly orthogonal to the idea of doing our own
management on Windows, and a boon for being able to work with standard
Windows installer files a la
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/windows_installer_start_page.asp

Please explain.

> Realize that
> Ruby is a very effective language for folks that merely want to automate
> their platform, and most computer users are running Win32 (unfortunate, but
> true).  For them, they want binary versions of libraries and a graphical
> installer.

Some of them; not all of them, I think.  But I agree that this is one
of the relevant target gorups.

> RubyGems does support win32, and will include a GUI for gems
> management.

I could replace "RubyGems" with "RPA" in the above sentence.

Eivind.