Worthwhile to build a gem?

Ruby
1

I have a project where a number of internally-developed Ruby libraries
will need to be installed on numerous machines. Small apps will then be
written using this set of libraries almost like a framework really.

Is it worth considering building a gem out of this library and running a
private gem server in order to manage these libraries? The alternative
would be to maintain working copies (maybe in site_ruby?) from an svn
server – much like you’d typically maintain a Rails app on servers.

This site seems to to be very out of date http://docs.rubygems.org/
based on the version numbers and self-proclaimed recent updates page.

This page http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/5 says to see the
DevelopersGuide, but I can’t find such a critter anywhere, so where is
there current info available on building gems?

Thx.

– gw

2

On Jul 2, 5:14 pm, Greg W. [email protected] wrote:

I have a project where a number of internally-developed Ruby libraries
will need to be installed on numerous machines. Small apps will then be
written using this set of libraries almost like a framework really.

Will these libraries all be in single project (ie. gem), or do your
see them each as separate projects?

Is it worth considering building a gem out of this library and running a
private gem server in order to manage these libraries? The alternative
would be to maintain working copies (maybe in site_ruby?) from an svn
server – much like you’d typically maintain a Rails app on servers.

your using svn rather than git I take it.

T.

3

On Jul 2, 2008, at 14:14 PM, Greg W. wrote:

This site seems to to be very out of date http://docs.rubygems.org/
based on the version numbers and self-proclaimed recent updates page.

This page http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/5 says to see the
DevelopersGuide, but I can’t find such a critter anywhere, so where is
there current info available on building gems?

Rake::GemPackageTask is probably what you’ll find easiest for this:

Rake::PackageTask.new(“package”) do |p|
p.name = PKG_NAME # string
p.version = PKG_VERSION # string
p.package_files = PKG_FILES # array
end

4

On Jul 2, 6:59 pm, Greg W. [email protected] wrote:

server side data aggregation apps.
Cool. I’d say create a gem for it. Would Capistrano be helpful?

Is it worth considering building a gem out of this library and running a
private gem server in order to manage these libraries? The alternative
would be to maintain working copies (maybe in site_ruby?) from an svn
server – much like you’d typically maintain a Rails app on servers.

your [you’re] using svn rather than git I take it.

svn, yes. If I changed my code with every new fasionable thing, I’d
never get anything done. svn works just fine for me.

:slight_smile: i can relate.

T.

5

Trans wrote:

On Jul 2, 5:14pm, Greg W. wrote:

I have a project where a number of internally-developed Ruby libraries
will need to be installed on numerous machines. Small apps will then be
written using this set of libraries almost like a framework really.

Will these libraries all be in single project (ie. gem), or do your
see them each as separate projects?

The libraries form a single core of tools and logic upon which to build
server side data aggregation apps.

Is it worth considering building a gem out of this library and running a
private gem server in order to manage these libraries? The alternative
would be to maintain working copies (maybe in site_ruby?) from an svn
server – much like you’d typically maintain a Rails app on servers.

your [you’re] using svn rather than git I take it.

svn, yes. If I changed my code with every new fasionable thing, I’d
never get anything done. svn works just fine for me.

– gw

6

On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 06:14:49AM +0900, Greg W. wrote:

I have a project where a number of internally-developed Ruby libraries
will need to be installed on numerous machines. Small apps will then be
written using this set of libraries almost like a framework really.

Is it worth considering building a gem out of this library and running a
private gem server in order to manage these libraries? The alternative
would be to maintain working copies (maybe in site_ruby?) from an svn
server – much like you’d typically maintain a Rails app on servers.

yes, it is always worthwhile to build a gem :-). Its good experience
and something every ruby developer should know how to do. And if the
code is useful outside your specific application it makes it easy to
distribute to the rest of the world.

This is exactly what we do at my job. Currently we have 18 gems that
define our private codebase. We maintain an internal gem server, and
capistrano deployment scripts to manage the installation of the gems on
the various machines depending on their role. Our infrastructure is a
mixture of command line, rails and merb apps, and this approach is
working pretty well for us.

enjoy,

-jeremy