Re: Ruby packaging in wheezy: gem2deb, new policy, etc.

[Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net>]

On 19/01/11 at 11:14 -0800, Clint Byrum wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-01-19 at 12:44 -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> > Lucas Nussbaum dijo [Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 08:33:02PM +0100]:
> > > > How is the compatibility between implementations right now? If a
> > > > package works across interpreters (it should be human-tested! Maybe
> > > > running its test suite with the different available interpreters would
> > > > do, although I don't want to do it for every uploaded package...),
> > > 
> > > Why wouldn't you want to do it with every available interpreter? That's
> > > what is implemented in gem2deb currently.
> > 
> > Run the test suite four times per package, once with each interpreter?
> > Well, of course it gives better coverage... But some test suites are
> > quite long to run. And if we reach a stage where the different
> > interpreters are compatible enough, it might be pointless. 
> > 
> > Also, it bloats our build-dependencies. If I have to install
> > traditional Ruby, Java (to get jruby) and Mono (to get IronRuby), and
> > whatever it takes to run Rubinius... Well, setups will be huge.
> > 
> 
> I'd say its 100% worth it. The more implementations you test against at
> build time, the more likely it is that you will catch bugs in either the
> ruby code or the interpreters. As long as its easy to disable an
> interpreter until a fix is available, having 200 extra build deps lying
> around isn't really that big of a concern when compared with the
> benefits of full test coverage.

Note that there's a small problem, though: we can't Depend on jruby,
because it is currently in non-free, so gem2deb would have to move to
contrib. So jruby is out of the support area until this is fixed.

- Lucas