Testing for Gems 0.9.0 Beta

Hi Tom,

I wanted to run some ideas by you.  One of the big changes
scheduled for 
RubyGems 0.9.0 is how the gem command downloads the gem
index from 
RubyForge.  Currently, gem grabs the entire wad of gem specs
if it 
detects that the size of the index file has changed.  The
new version 
will incrementally download only those gems that have been
updated since 
the last download.  Hopefully this will cut down download
bandwidth a 
bit and speed up the end user experience.

However, in order to support incremental index downloads,
the index 
files for a gem repository need to be enhanced.  I've been
running with 
an enhanced index on my beta gem site (http://onestepback.or
g/betagems) 
for some time.  The new index format is backwards compatible
with the 
old software, so that people using older gem commands will
still 
continue to work.

What I would like to do in the near future is give you the
new indexing 
software to run on RubyForge.  After we verify that
everything still 
works for the current gems, I will get a limited number of
people to try 
out the beta gems with incremental downloading and begin to
see how that 
works on a large site like RubyForge.  Once everything looks
OK, we can 
proceed with a RubyGems release.

I think the above approach will get everything in place with
the minimum 
disruption to the gem users.  I don't know how this will
play with your 
mirror sites however.

What do you think?  Any feedback?

(Note:  Copied to the RubyGems-dev mailing list)

-- 
-- Jim Weirich       jweirichone.net      http://onestepback.org
------------------------------------------------------------
-----
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved
it correct,
not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van
Emde Boas)
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> I wanted to run some ideas by you.  One of the big
changes 
> scheduled for 
> RubyGems 0.9.0 is how the gem command downloads the gem
index from 
> RubyForge.  Currently, gem grabs the entire wad of gem
specs if it 
> detects that the size of the index file has changed. 
The new version 
> will incrementally download only those gems that have
been 
> updated since 
> the last download.  Hopefully this will cut down
download bandwidth a 
> bit and speed up the end user experience.

Hi Jim -

Sounds great!  Yup, I've talked with Rich about this a bit.

> What I would like to do in the near future is give you
the 
> new indexing 
> software to run on RubyForge.  After we verify that
everything still 
> works for the current gems, I will get a limited number
of 
> people to try 
> out the beta gems with incremental downloading and
begin to 
> see how that 
> works on a large site like RubyForge.  Once everything
looks 
> OK, we can 
> proceed with a RubyGems release.

Super!  Send it onwards and I'll put it in place.

> I think the above approach will get everything in place
with 
> the minimum 
> disruption to the gem users.  I don't know how this
will play 
> with your 
> mirror sites however.

I think it'll be fine - we only redirect requests for the
actual gems to
the mirror sites; RubyForge serves up the index.  So should
be same ole'
same ole'.... underway as before and all that.

Yours,

Tom

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