[Rubygems-developers] Specifying a platform

[Gavin Sinclair]

Folks,

I'd like an opinion on the "platform" issue in RubyGems.  I was
surprised to get this error when trying out a gemspec for ruby-dict.

$ gem -b ruby-dict.gemspec
Attempting to build gem spec 'ruby-dict.gemspec'
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/specification.rb:333:in `validate': Missing value for att
ribute platform (Gem::InvalidSpecificationException)
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/specification.rb:331:in `each'
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/specification.rb:331:in `validate'
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/builder.rb:85:in `build'
        from /usr/local/bin/gem:494:in `build'
        from /usr/local/bin/gem:493:in `each'
        from /usr/local/bin/gem:493:in `build'
        from /usr/local/bin/gem:124:in `run'
        from /usr/local/bin/gem:679


There are a few points to make here.

1. The error message given there is a bit fearsome.  I'm not sure what
   the current policy on error messages is, but I'm sure this one can
   be improved.  I'll take advice and then make the change myself.

2. Why is a platform required?  I understand platform to be "what kind
   of machine this can run on", which is fine, but what does "Ruby"
   mean as a platform?  If a gem is platform-independent, does a
   platform need to be specified?  If we must have "Ruby" meaning
   "platform-independent Ruby-based gem", can it be the default
   setting?

   Platform suggests to me a binary gem, I suppose.

3. Naming.  I've brought this up before, but buried within a thread.
   When I had "Gem::Platform::RUBY" specified as the platform for
   "ruby-dict", it built fine, but the gem was named
   "ruby-dict-ruby-0.9.2.gem".

   That seems unappealing and unnecessary to me.  If platform meant
   purely a binary gem, then I could understand seeing gem names like

     wx-windows-mswin-0.3.2.gem
     wx-windows-osx-0.3.2.gem
     etc.

   But I would prefer to see

     wx-windows-(mswin)-0.3.2.gem
     wx-windows-(osx)-0.3.2.gem
     etc.

   And I prefer never to see

     ruby-dict-ruby-0.9.2.gem

   or

     ruby-dict-(ruby)-0.9.2.gem

   although the latter is more palatable :)


Cheers,
Gavin