[Rubygems-developers] Suggestions regarding new CLI

[Jim Weirich]

Jim Weirich wrote:
> I've gone through most of the pages and updated command examples with 
> the new syntax.
> 
> Currently I'm working on a complete version of the command line options, 
>  so go ahead with the spec writeup.

One more update!   I've completed the command line reference and updated 
the wiki.  The command line reference was actually generated by the 
gemdoc.rb & data files in the scripts directory of the CVS package. 
Rather than update the page, I'm suggesting we update the gemdoc data 
and upload it.  Gemdoc weaves the text data and output from the gem 
command together so that the option listings are 100% correct with the 
program.

Notice I've also added categories to the documentation pages.  This is 
an old wiki trick to get automatic indexing.  You want to know what 
pages are in the User Documentation category?  Well, just go to the 
CategoryUserDocumentation page and click on the page title.  If we keep 
the categories up to date, it will make it easier for folk to find what 
they are looking for.

Finally, as I was doing examples, the following issues came to my notice:

* When dependent gems are installed (e.g. installing log4r when copland 
is requested), the success of the dependent installs is not seen at the 
console.  Just the success of the requested gem.  In the examples 
(before I replaced it with new output), all gems were reported on.  Is 
this something we should fix?

* Sometimes uninstall gives a Undefined Method Error: 
version_requirement, but no backtrace is given.  This only happens in 
certain cases, but I can get it to repeat (I think).

* Some commands take gem names as "name" and "name-1.2.3", and some 
commands take only "name".  In particular, uninstall does not recognized 
the versioned version.  It would be helpful if it does.  It might be 
worth discussing in general when "name" vs "name-1.2.3" is appropriate.

* I don't think the .gemrc configuration file is picked up.  It is 
commented out in *two* places in the code (not by me), so I'm thinking 
someone did that with the intention of coming back to it.  This should 
be fixed before release.

* I think I broke gem update.  It fails with a Undefined Method error: 
process_install_command.

I'm throwing these out in case someone else would like to take a look at 
them.  I'm taking a break for a while.  I might get back to these later 
tonight.

-- 
-- Jim Weirich    jim at weirichhouse.org     http://onestepback.org
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"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct,
not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)