Instantrails users - Nov 2005 - Retaining non-Rails customization over upgrades

Suppose I want to make an Instant Rails installation my ONLY
installation of Ruby.

Suppose I''ve got personal customizations to the ../ruby directory
tree - installed RubyGems, added .so libraries, tweaked
testrunners in Test::Unit, etc.

How would I go about rolling over those changes from one release
of Instant Rails to the next as automatically and elegantly as
possible?

Thanks -

 DeeJay, Leicester, UK

On 11/3/05, DeeJay <smartgpx at gmail.com> wrote:
> Suppose I want to make an Instant Rails installation my ONLY
> installation of Ruby.
>
> Suppose I''ve got personal customizations to the ../ruby directory
> tree - installed RubyGems, added .so libraries, tweaked
> testrunners in Test::Unit, etc.
>
> How would I go about rolling over those changes from one release
> of Instant Rails to the next as automatically and elegantly as
> possible?
Its an excellent question that I don''t (yet) have an answer for. I
know that this is a problem that begs for a solution (or at least for
some assistance), but I haven''t yet had the bandwidth to think about
it.

I''m open to suggestions!  :-)

Curt

> How would I go about rolling over [ personal customizations to
> the ../ruby directory tree ] from one release
> of Instant Rails to the next as automatically and elegantly as
> possible?
A possible answer to my own query.

What I''m doing at the moment is just keeping a directory that
holds copies of what I want to preserve, from which I make copies
into the appropriate places in the renewed InstRails directory
tree. That could be automated with a Windows .bat file or a
.rb script

Looking for a solution that keeps this within the Ruby family, I
guess that Rake could be used to do the distribution of files
to their final locations? For a small (say <10) number of
files or subdirectories a rakefile could be built and maintained
''by hand'' - after that it might get a bit unwieldy? Q: can
rake safely invoke gem to keep a set of gems updated?

This is from someone new to Ruby - I''ve never fired up
Rake, so this is all speculative - guidance based on
experience would be welcome.

DeeJay

On 11/4/05, DeeJay <smartgpx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How would I go about rolling over [ personal customizations to
> > the ../ruby directory tree ] from one release
> > of Instant Rails to the next as automatically and elegantly as
> > possible?
>
> A possible answer to my own query.
>
> What I''m doing at the moment is just keeping a directory that
> holds copies of what I want to preserve, from which I make copies
> into the appropriate places in the renewed InstRails directory
> tree. That could be automated with a Windows .bat file or a
> .rb script
>
> Looking for a solution that keeps this within the Ruby family, I
> guess that Rake could be used to do the distribution of files
> to their final locations? For a small (say <10) number of
> files or subdirectories a rakefile could be built and maintained
> ''by hand'' - after that it might get a bit unwieldy? Q:
can
> rake safely invoke gem to keep a set of gems updated?
>
> This is from someone new to Ruby - I''ve never fired up
> Rake, so this is all speculative - guidance based on
> experience would be welcome.
Or, perhaps, an upgrade script written in ruby (or rake/ruby) could
analyze  the changes that have been made in the Instant Rails
directory tree (this would require me to include a manifest of all the
files in the dirstribution and their original timestamps) and would
offer to copy all new or modified files to a new installation. It
could be smart enough to know certain files may require hand-merging.
I could even include WinMerge in the distribution and use it to open
such files for merging.

Curt

Curt

Synchronicity strikes again!

You said:

"I could even include WinMerge "

Until earlier today I hadn''t heard of WinMerge. It popped up on
lifehacker.com this morning, and I had pushed it onto my stack
of ''possibly useful tools to look at sometime''.

I''ve now popped it off that stack and looked at it. Handy! I think
that solves my problem for now, thanks.

Incidentally, I had considered the ''copy all missing files to the
new installation'' option but had discounted doing it unilaterally,
(ie. ''mindlessly'') because there might be times when
re-instating
a file that has been deliberately deleted might be the Wrong
Thing To Do. (eg Version ''minus one'' might have needed a
config file to force some unusual options to cope with some
immature code. Now the code is good the default options
become the correct ones. Dropping the previous config options
back in might break the behaviour of the new code.)

DeeJay, Leicester, UK

PS: apologies for the inappropriate suggestion about starting
FreeRIDE - I didn''t realise until earlier today that it is another
of the projects that you are involved in. <Blush>