On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:18:11 +0900, Yukihiro Matsumoto
<matz / ruby-lang.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In message "Re: RAA Status & The Problem with Ruby"
>     on Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:45:08 +0900, leon breedt <bitserf / gmail.com> writes:
> 
> |* Central repository (RAA?), mirrored, containing the (1) and (2)
> |artifacts, and only serving downloads for the "installer" below.
> 
> RAA would refuse to be a central repository.  Despite the name, it is
> (and will be) the central _index_ of the various Ruby projects.  RPA
> might be a candidate for the central.

Matz, I don't think RPA's goal was so much to be the _physical
repository_ of its packages (though that is a necessary side effect)
as it was to be a QA'd group of packages.

RubyGems also has the concept of a repository, which is where
libraries come from when you do: gem install libraryname.

I see RubyGems as being the packaging extension of the RAA.  RAA (and
RubyForge) support traditional open source bazaar-mode development. 
The same is true of RubyGems.  Some libraries might not work.  Some
may be of alpha quality.  Some may rm -rf your system if you're not
careful.  RPA's goal was to QA and validate libraries so that only
ones that the RPA team deemed of being high quality were included in
the RPA release.

The packaging system and repository were requirements that the RPA
team felt were necessary for their _actual_ vision to be realized.

So, to expand on your original statement, we actually have three
things (or four):

1.  Package format
2.  Package repository
3.  QA / Validation process (RPA)
4.  Package index (RAA)

I see RubyGems filling the needs of #1 and #2.  In fact, I see it
actually filling those needs for > 200 packages and literally
thousands of users today.

As with any library or application, there are bound to be rough edges
in RubyGems.  But, it keeps improving, and it will keep improving
through the efforts of the volunteers that maintain it and the
cooperation of the hundreds or thousands of users who are using it
daily and submitting bug reports and feature requests.

Someone made the point that Python, TCL, Perl, etc. don't have the
versioning concept that RubyGems has.  My point exactly.
 
-- 
Chad Fowler
http://chadfowler.com
http://rubycentral.org 
http://rubygarden.org 
http://rubygems.rubyforge.org (over 100,000 gems served!)