[Rubygems-developers] Reviewing the Tattle Data (was RubyGems plaform thread)

[Eric Hodel]

On Apr 24, 2007, at 19:13, Jim Weirich wrote:
> Eric Hodel wrote:
>> On Apr 23, 2007, at 19:14, Jim Weirich wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't seen the results of tattle yet (perhaps Chad would like
>>> to share the gathered data)
>>
>> Its downloadable from: http://tattle.rubygarden.org/
>
> Thanks.
>
> Going over the tattle data is interesting.  And it raises a number of
> questions.
>
> (1) Do we need to differentiate between the various ix86 hardware
> architectures (e.g. i386, i486, i586, i686)?  If not, fine.  If so,  
> then
> when choosing among available platformed varients, a i686 platform
> should be able to choose any of the iX86 variants, but a i486 would  
> only
> be able to choose between i386 and i486 variants.  (Is that correct?)

I think the distinction is bogus.  While its possible, I really doubt  
there's any Ruby-C code that requires a specific processor in the x86  
family.

> In any case, X86_64 would have to be distinct from all the others.

Yes.

> (2) What's up with Darwin8.8.1 stuff.  My Mac claims to be 10.4.9, but
> Ruby is Darwin8.8.1.  Is the 8.8.1 the BSD version, not the Mac OS  
> version?

Its the Darwin version.  10.4 is Darwin 8, 10.3 is Darwin 7, etc.

See also:

http://blog.segment7.net/articles/2007/01/10/tattle-host-os

> (3) Sheesh, 17% of the respondents are running RubyGems 0.8.11.  Just
> haven't upgraded?  ... or technical issues with later version causing
> problems?  (inquiring minds want to know).

Likely, laziness.

> (4) Woah ... the prefix data looks a little revealing.  Perhaps that
> shouldn't be on the download page (i.e. I now know where one prominent
> JRuby developer keeps his JRuby installation).

It doesn't matter, its not a secret.

> (5) I'm guessing that 'target' is the platform Ruby is intended to run
> on and 'host' is the platform where it was compiled.  Is that right?

I'm guessing the same.  The autoconf documentation would say for sure.