Re: Bug#301083: ITP: libevolution-ruby -- revolution, ruby binding for the evolution mail client

["Adam M." <ummajera@yahoo.ca>]

David Moreno Garza wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-03-24 at 17:31 +0000, Henning Makholm wrote:
>  
>
>>Scripsit David Moreno Garza <damog@damog.net>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Revolution is a little Ruby binding to the excellent Evolution email
>>>client.
>>>      
>>>
>>Is it so little that it would be better to include it with the
>>evolution package?
>>    
>>
>
>Not quite sure since:
>
>a) evolution, IMHO, doesn't need to depend on ruby.
>b) It is a 3rd-party software, not included officially by Novell.
>c) It is a ruby module itself, just as other several hundreds.
>
>But if evolution's maintainer thinks it could be a good idea (I don't),
>we can implement it in the near future, yes.
>  
>

With regards to a), I don't think you need to depend on ruby at all. The
reason is that the ruby bindings are only available for programs running
in a ruby interpreter (AFAIK). Thus, if you want to *use* the ruby
bindings, you then install ruby. If you do not install ruby, you do not
need or use the ruby bindings.

For example, if you package a libfoo package that is a C library, and
libfoo-dev contains the static part of the C library, then there is no
need to have libfoo-dev depend on the C compiler. Anyone that *uses* the
libfoo-dev library will need to install a C compiler regardless.

Thus, libevelution-ruby doesn't need to depend on Ruby. It only needs to
depend on evolution.

- Adam

PS. It may need build depend on ruby, rake, etc.. , but that is different.