Rubyinstaller devel - Jul 2009 - Additional FAQ questions for review

I believe we need to add the following to
http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq in order to bring people up to
speed on the goals of the project.

Some of these answers are part of existing Q''s, but I think we need
something more direct.

I''ll update the FAQ appropriately based upon feedback.

Jon




General FAQs
-------------
Q: What are the goals of this project and why does it exist?

A: The overall goal of the One-Click Ruby Installer project is to provide
developers working on Windows systems a quick and easy way to begin developing
with Ruby using an MRI-based (Matz'' Ruby Implementation) environment
while enabling enhancements through Ruby''s standard RubyGems packaging
system.

Specifically, this project has the following goals:

1) Provide a easy to use Windows installer for quickly and painlessly installing
a fully functioning baseline MRI Ruby environment on Windows platforms.

2) Provide an optional development kit for those interested in building
mswin32-compatible Ruby extensions natively on Windows platforms using the MinGW
toolchain.

3) Provide a build environment via this project and complementary projects like
rake-compiler http://github.com/luislavena/rake-compiler/tree/master to help
developers easily build Ruby and Ruby C extensions from source code.

4) Add value to the growing community of Windows-based Ruby developers by
providing a place that summarizes the hard won lessons and issues with building
Ruby and Ruby C extensions natively on Windows.




Development and Contributing FAQs
---------------------------------

Q: I understand the project goals, but why can''t I simply download the
latest MRI binary distribution from
ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/binaries/mswin32/ and start developing?

A: While this is a perfectly reasonable way to get started with Ruby on a
Windows platform, we believe that the extra steps you''ll need to take
in order to get a fully functioning baseline Ruby installation will slow you
down from quickly starting to develop with Ruby.

We believe the One-Click Installer integrates just the right amount of
functionality to quickly get you on the path to enjoying Ruby without
distracting you with missing dependencies.

Some of the things to consider when deciding to whether to use the MRI binary
distribution:

1) Missing DLLs such as zlib, readline, openssl.... [PLEASE ADD TO THIS LIST]
required for a fully functioning baseline system.  Do you really want to take
the time to search for and/or build the required DLLs so that "irb"
and "gem" don''t pop up error dialog?

2) ???

3) ???




Q: Now that Microsoft is providing its free Visual C++ Express editions and
including build tools such as cl, link, nmake, etc as part of the Windows SDK
(as of mid-2009), why can''t I just download the MRI binary and Visual
C++ Express and start developing?  Why would I want a MinGW-based
implementation?


[THIS ONE NEEDS A *LOT* OF LOVE FROM THE TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE, BUT
HERE''S A GO AT ONE POTENTIAL ANSWER...OR MAYBE IT''S THE INTRO
PART OF THE ANSWER TO BE FOLLOWED BY *SPECIFIC* BENEFITS...I PARTICULARLY
DON''T THINK WE WANT TO TURN THIS INTO A GCC vs. MICROSOFT TOOLCHAIN
FLAME BAIT]


A: This also is a perfectly reasonable option if you feel more productive
developing with the Microsoft tools you''ve mentioned.  However, many
people are also very comfortable using the GCC toolchain so a MinGW-based
implementation and supporting tools enable them to be productive without
learning the peculiarities of the Microsoft provided tools.

In addition, many binary RubyGems developers do not build their gems on Windows
systems.  As they usually choose to cross compile binary Windows gems from their
Linux or OSX development systems, a MinGW-based Ruby implementation makes a lot
of sense to those developers who want the widest possible access to RubyGems
without potentially having to rebuild the gem from source, tuning the build
setup to the Microsoft tools, just to use a particular gem.

[A LITTLE HELP HERE..........]

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Jon<jon.forums at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I believe we need to add the following to
http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq in order to bring people up to
speed on the goals of the project.
>
> Some of these answers are part of existing Q''s, but I think we
need something more direct.
>
> I''ll update the FAQ appropriately based upon feedback.
>
Thank you Jon!

I''m going to take a little bit of time during this weekend to provide
a more technical answer to the last point in the updated FAQ.

FYI: The reason for MinGW based is more than MS vs. Cross platform
tools, is more related to binaries, C Runtime libraries and backward
compatibility with 3rd party binaries like sqlite3.dll and others.

More to come on this.

And thank you for taking the time and tackling the documentation
aspect of the project. It has been neglected a lot by me :-P

Cheers,
-- 
Luis Lavena
AREA 17
-
Perfection in design is achieved not when there is nothing more to add,
but rather when there is nothing more to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry

> 
> More to come on this.
> 
> And thank you for taking the time and tackling the documentation
> aspect of the project. It has been neglected a lot by me :-P
No problem and it helps me better understand the issues with native Ruby
extensions which I''ve purposely avoided for too long.

While I''ve still got some spare time at work, I plan on looking into
consolidating more of the documentation for the GitHub wiki which will hopefully
be useful when your new web site gets completed.

In fact, I think we need a Wiki page dedicated to "Building Compatible
Native Windows Extensions with MinGW".  Too long of a title, but it should
pull together a lot of the knowledge you and others have developed into a single
place.  For example, summarizing info from your blog posts on blog.mmediasys.com
and pulling info from posts I''ve seen from Roger Pack, Charlie Savage
and others, 1.8 and 1.9 extensions via "fat gems", ruby ffi options,
etc.

Not that I think we need to duplicate info, but I think there''s a lot
of value with tying the info together into a clear summary, all in one place for
someone looking at building native windows extensions and needing to get spun up
on the key technical issues.  To me this education goal seems to fit well with
the other project goals.

More on this idea once we update the FAQ with those last couple of issues.

Jon

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Jon<jon.forums at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I believe we need to add the following to
http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq in order to bring people up to
speed on the goals of the project.
>
Hello Jon, see my responses inline to the Development FAQ section.
> [...]
>
> Development and Contributing FAQs
> ---------------------------------
>
> Q: I understand the project goals, but why can''t I simply download
the latest MRI binary distribution from
ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/binaries/mswin32/ and start developing?
>
> A: While this is a perfectly reasonable way to get started with Ruby on a
Windows platform, we believe that the extra steps you''ll need to take
in order to get a fully functioning baseline Ruby installation will slow you
down from quickly starting to develop with Ruby.
>
> We believe the One-Click Installer integrates just the right amount of
functionality to quickly get you on the path to enjoying Ruby without
distracting you with missing dependencies.
>
> Some of the things to consider when deciding to whether to use the MRI
binary distribution:
>
> 1) Missing DLLs such as zlib, readline, openssl.... [PLEASE ADD TO THIS
LIST] required for a fully functioning baseline system. ?Do you really want to
take the time to search for and/or build the required DLLs so that
"irb" and "gem" don''t pop up error dialog?
>
curses, tk, gdbm just to mention the most common.
> 2) ???
>
2) The Zlib extension has been compiled against a flawed version of
ZLib, this generate random errors as Buffer errors.
> 3) ???
3) Because the versions used to build and link all the components
mentioned in point 1 are obsolete and quite old (example, Readline was
at version 4, OpenSSL was at 0.9.7, which has been discovered being
flawed).
>
> Q: Now that Microsoft is providing its free Visual C++ Express editions and
including build tools such as cl, link, nmake, etc as part of the Windows SDK
(as of mid-2009), why can''t I just download the MRI binary and Visual
C++ Express and start developing? ?Why would I want a MinGW-based
implementation?
>
>
Existing MRI Binary has been built with VC6, and links to an specific
Runtime version library: MSVCRT.DLL.

Newer versions of Visual C uses newer version of this runtime library,
being MSVCR80.dll (VC8) or MSVCR90 (VC9).

The mix of C Runtime libraries is not safe, since memory allocated in
the heap of one runtime cannot be freed from another C runtime
library, thus causing segmentation faults and abnormal program
termination.

This topic has been raised several times to Ruby-Core team, and been
since year 2006 quite problematic to discuss due the implications and
the dependency on "good behavior" of external libraries beyond Ruby
itself.

I''ve tried to cover this on my blog:

http://blog.mmediasys.com/2008/01/17/ruby-for-windows-part-1/

Also, Ruby adds another layer of complexity to the problem. Ruby built
with VC6 cannot build extensions against any other version than VC6,
unless user manually tweak "rbconfig.rb".

All this makes complicated change compiler versions.

MinGW (GCC) was the more logical option for serveral reasons:

* It offered a open, free solution that can be easily downloaded,
configured or even distributed to others without breaking any EULA

* It linked against the exact same C Runtime library than original
build of Ruby, which avoided the need to compile and build all the
libraries that Ruby depends on.

* It helped standardize the building of extensions across platforms,
since GCC is the main option on UNIX systems, reducing the complexity
of instructions required for tools or libraries under different
platforms.

[HERE COMES YOUR TEXT FOR CROSS-PLATFORM GEM DEVELOPERS]
> [...]
>
> [A LITTLE HELP HERE..........]
What do you think? It helped?

-- 
Luis Lavena
AREA 17
-
Perfection in design is achieved not when there is nothing more to add,
but rather when there is nothing more to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Jon<jon.forums at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> More to come on this.
>>
>> And thank you for taking the time and tackling the documentation
>> aspect of the project. It has been neglected a lot by me :-P
>
> No problem and it helps me better understand the issues with native Ruby
extensions which I''ve purposely avoided for too long.
>
Replied to that, hope the answers shed some light to the compiler issue.
> [...]
>
> In fact, I think we need a Wiki page dedicated to "Building Compatible
Native Windows Extensions with MinGW". ?Too long of a title, but it should
pull together a lot of the knowledge you and others have developed into a single
place. ?For example, summarizing info from your blog posts on blog.mmediasys.com
and pulling info from posts I''ve seen from Roger Pack, Charlie Savage
and others, 1.8 and 1.9 extensions via "fat gems", ruby ffi options,
etc.
That kind of information will be great to have. Basically, I''ve
rebuild sqlite3-ruby and mysql-gem to be 1.8 and 1.9 compatible,
fat-binaries and cross compilable:

http://github.com/luislavena/sqlite3-ruby
http://github.com/luislavena/mysql-gem
> Not that I think we need to duplicate info, but I think there''s a
lot of value with tying the info together into a clear summary, all in one place
for someone looking at building native windows extensions and needing to get
spun up on the key technical issues. ?To me this education goal seems to fit
well with the other project goals.
>
Yes! you''re correct, is not only making the life of Ruby users easy,
but also make the life of Ruby developers that create tools easy too
;-)
> More on this idea once we update the FAQ with those last couple of issues.
>
Awesome! A huge thank you for taking the lead on the doc part of the project!

Regards,
-- 
Luis Lavena
AREA 17
-
Perfection in design is achieved not when there is nothing more to add,
but rather when there is nothing more to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry

speaking of tk, if I commit a patch would it be possible to include it
in the standard distro?  The only reason I suggest this is that it''s a
core library, so providing it as a gem [or binary download] seems kind
of...odd, though possible.

=r

> Hello Jon, see my responses inline to the Development FAQ section.
>
> 
> What do you think? It helped?

Thanks, and yes your feedback definitely helped!  I''ll begin updating
http://wiki.github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/faq appropriately.

I''m assuming that since you had no feedback on the "project
goals" Q&A you''re OK with it.  I''ll tweak it a bit
and also add it to the FAQ.

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Jon<jon.forums at gmail.com>
wrote:
> [...]
>
> I''m assuming that since you had no feedback on the "project
goals" Q&A you''re OK with it. ?I''ll tweak it a bit
and also add it to the FAQ.
You''re correct again :-)

You outlined the project goals that I''ve tried several times to
communicate. Was re-reading several of my posts and basically, you
covered the main points :-)

-- 
Luis Lavena
AREA 17
-
Perfection in design is achieved not when there is nothing more to add,
but rather when there is nothing more to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry