[Rubygems-developers] Ignoring mswin32 gems

[Jim Weirich]

Chad Fowler wrote:
> Sorry...I think the issue is that this problem is actually _more_  
> general than the one example here.  Our whole notion of handling  
> platforms needs a lot of work.  We did the simplest thing that worked  
> at the time, but I think the current state of the gem repository has  
> outgrown this approach.  Try installing mongrel for an example. :)
> 
> I think we need to bump "rework platform-specific gems" onto the  
> pre-1.0 list.

Actually, this is 100% in line with what I'm thinking.  As part of the 
local/remote integration (which, honestly, I haven't shared a lot of my 
ideas yet), I would like to define a standard way of referencing a gem, 
sort of a URI for gems (I'm calling it GRID, for Gem Resource 
IDentifier).  Part of the grid will be a better way of identifying 
platforms.  For example,  I think we need to differentiate between pure 
ruby gems (that will run anywhere) and gems with C extensions (that 
require a compile environment), in addition to the win32/darwin/whetever 
platforms.  The gem command, in resolving a GRID, will be able to select 
only those candidates that are appropriate for a user.

I have notes somewhere on how GRIDs are supposed to work, and they 
should be backwards compatible (more or less) with todays scheme.  Now, 
where did I put those notes?

- Jim Weirich