[Pkg-ruby-extras-maintainers] Trying my hands at packaging Ruby: SCGI runner for Rails

[Paul van Tilburg]

Hello Gunnar,

On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 01:07:30PM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> I'm the Cherokee Web server maintainer, and I realized it's worth it
> to simplify my Rails-minded users' lifes. I'm packaging the SCGI
> runner for Rails - But I don't want to upload it just yet, as it's my
> first go at Ruby packaging, and there are still some details to
> fill. Besides, I do think it's way better to have this package
> group-maintained. I'm still quite new to Ruby, so I'm not sure whether
> to join this group or just upload my package and hand it over to you.

Well, you are always welcome to join the team.  Even more so if you
consider helping out with other packages in the future.

> Anyway, please take a look at my packaging [1 - ITP just sent, no
> number assigned yet]. I tried to mimic other Ruby modules I've found,
> but there are some items I want feedback on: 
> 
> - Naming. I've not seen other Rails-specific Ruby modules. I think
>   libscgi-rails-ruby is a proper descriptive name, but then again it
>   might be misleading, as the only provided module is 'scgi'. Even
>   more, this brings together the 'scgi' module and the (example but
>   sufficient) scripts scgi_ctrl, scgi_service and scgi_cluster (for
>   which I still have to write the manual pages)... So it might not be
>   best suited to be seen as a library, but as a full-fledged
>   application. Any comments?

The package seems to have programs as well as a library. I've read a bit
about the Rails SCGI runner, but I wonder how much this is Rail dependant.
If I write some non-Rails CGI application, can I use it too?

If it is Rails specific, I would go for rails-scgi, simple as that.
If not.. you have to ask yourself if it is of any use that the API
of the SCGI lib is available to Ruby without these programs/tools.
If so.. I would create a libscgi-ruby package and maybe make
ruby-scgi-tools or something.
If the library is central to this upstream, you might consider leaving
it at libscgi-ruby and install the programs in that package too (this is
then the same as libbreakpoint-ruby does).
If the library is a plugin for Rails only..  I'd go for
librails-scgi-ruby, however this would violate that if a library is
loaded with 'require "foo"' it should be called libfoo-ruby.
So, as you can see, I'm not quite sure what you should do... any thougths?

> - Documentation. Upstream ships with a rdoc tree, with complete
>   documentation translated to HTML. I see the Ruby modules I have
>   installed to not provide such a tree - Why? I do find it more
>   convenient than requiring the user to convert the rdoc by
>   themselves. Or am I missing something Ruby-specific?

No, you are not ;)
This is not standardized by policy yet.  My proposition was for dh_rdoc
to install RDoc native and RDoc HTML documentation when available from
upstream or generate it if this was not the case.  Currently, correct me
if I'm wrong, dh_rdoc only (always) generates documentation for
lib<foo>-ruby-doc packages. 
For Etch+1 we seriously have to look at the documentation.  This will be
a part of defining a new and better policy hopefully also solving these
naming issues.

> - Would anybody among you be interested in taking this package over?
>   As I said, I'm newish on Ruby, and I'm sure you would (at least for
>   now) make a better work on this package than me. Of course, I'm the
>   interested person, so... :)

IMO it's better if we don't take it over but just assist you in creating
a fine package.  I'm quite sure that you can make a package as good as 
any of us can in the end.

Kind regards,

Paul

-- 
Student @ Eindhoven                         | email: paulvt at debian.org
University of Technology, The Netherlands   | JID: paul at luon.net
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