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From: Rhett Sutphin <rhett@detailedbalance.net>
To: users@buildr.apache.org
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Subject: Re: buildr usability
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:43:29 -0500
References: <4ADDB132.8050907@gmail.com>
 <5037b6e40910201020o214ba83eob7fa86ed9be12d4a@mail.gmail.com>
 <5c99d0330910201138g13d7d5d5u17725bd9227b0e58@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On Oct 20, 2009, at 1:38 PM, Daniel Spiewak wrote:

> I'm more in favor of a "One-Click-Buildr", unzip-and-go installation  
> based
> on JRuby.  Platform-specific builds are nice, but the idea is to bring
> Buildr installation more in line with what Java developers would  
> expect.
> MacPorts really isn't any better or worse than RubyGems, so platform
> specific builds don't gain us much.

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive.  E.g., I use  
MacPorts to install ant and maven.

Rhett

>
> Daniel
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Assaf Arkin <assaf@labnotes.org>  
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 5:46 AM, Ittay Dror <ittay.dror@gmail.com>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>>
>>> Regarding the next buildr version, I think the biggest issue  
>>> should be
>>> being able to quickly start using buildr.
>>>
>>>
>>> My experience is that BuildR is great for me as a build developer.  
>>> It
>>> allows me to do in several lines of code things that would take a  
>>> lot
>>> more in Ant and that I probably wouldn't even try with Maven.
>>>
>>>
>>> However, when it comes to other developers that just want to  
>>> compile the
>>> code, the procedure to start working with BuildR is just an obstacle
>>> they need to go through. And given that it is not as standard as  
>>> Maven
>>> or Ant, it is something new to install.
>>>
>>>
>>> Right now, I have 3 people trying to use BuildR without success. The
>>> first uses linux and so installed the ruby package but had  
>>> segmentation
>>> faults with java 1.6 (which we must use), so he needed to compile  
>>> ruby
>>> from source (not a smooth experience for a java developer coming  
>>> from
>>> windows). After compiling and installing, trying to upload, he got  
>>> an
>>> error about not being able to require openssl. Now, 'require' is  
>>> not a
>>> known term to a java developer... the reason for the error was  
>>> that at
>>> the time of compilation he didn't have libssl-dev installed. So he
>>> needed to install it, re-generate the Makefile for ext/openssl and  
>>> then
>>> install it. This was a long, un-Java process to go through...
>>>
>>>
>>> Two other users had issues because they couldn't get BuildR to  
>>> install
>>> on Mac. RJB could not find the ruby headers. We couldn't resolve  
>>> this
>>> issue, so they needed to resort to using another machine (!)
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course there's the choice of using JRuby. However, It will still
>>> require multiple steps (installing jruby then buildr) and I'm sure  
>>> it
>>> will have its own issues.
>>>
>>>
>>> What it boils down to is bad first impression with BuildR.
>>>
>>> I want to suggest that BuildR will be provided as a self-contained
>>> package. It could be jruby with all gems that can be extracted some
>>> placed and used, but optimally, it will also be packages per OS  
>>> (can be
>>> .tar.gz of binaries), which will help performance when running the
>>> builds. An additional feature is proper inspection of the  
>>> environment
>>> before running (something like 'require 'openssl' rescue puts  
>>> "please
>>> make sure you have openssl installed, on linux install libssl and on
>>> mac...").
>>>
>>
>> +1 and also consider platform-specific installation (apt-get, yum,
>> macports).
>>
>> Assaf
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ittay
>>>
>>> P.s., I can try to accomplish this if the idea sounds good.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>