[Rubygems-developers] Transitioning from 0.9.4 to 0.9.5

[Daniel Berger]

Hi all,

I was thinking about the gem compatibility issue some more.  I guess the 
first question is whether or not we can ensure that 0.9.4 can handle 
gems built with 0.9.5 or later. Can we do that?

If not, what about the possibility of catching this error?

  ERROR:  While executing gem ... (TypeError)
      can't instantiate uninitialized class

If we can catch that error, we could then:

1) Skip that gem and emit a warning indicating that the user should 
upgrade or they won't be able to install certain gems.
2) Automatically upgrade the user's version of rubygems (with a warning).
3) Provide the option to upgrade to the latest rubygems. If they say 
yes, upgrade rubygems and start again. If no, skip any troublesome gems 
and emit a warning.

Thoughts?

Dan