My first time with Ruby and Gem

I had no real opinion on ruby.  Heard it was like python, just different.  I like python.  I wanted to take a look at sproutcore, new javascript library that all the cool kids are talking about.  sproutcore uses ruby for a variety of reasons. Whatever, no big.  I work on a mac so Leopard has ruby preinstalled right?.  A quick check proved my suspicions.

ruby -v 

ruby 1.8.6 (2008-03-03 patchlevel 114) [universal-darwin9.0]

gem -v

1.0.1

Ok, so maybe I will just install sproutcore (using gem which seems to be ruby’s easy_install) and go on to see what all this brand new (yet just another) javascript library fuss is about.  

sudo gem install sproutcore

This gave me …

Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org

I killed it after approximately 30 minutes (that is not a misprint, I said 30 MINUTES) believing it perhaps did not understand I just wanted to fracking install sproutcore not download/update the index of the ruby gods.  Just sproutcore please.  

I tried it again, same results but my patience was on a much shorter fuse.  Tried the –help to see if there was a flag to set gem to not fuckall but none was apparent to me. 

Not willing to give up that easily I went to http://gems.rubyforge.org.  Simple website which informed me I could see the index in yaml.  Ok.  It downloaded in 4-5 seconds.  Is this yaml document the same index that gem is speaking of?  If so what the hell is gem doing?  

So anyways … fuck ruby and gem.

PostgreSQL with some Jeos

PostgreSQL – Open source database (their website here).

Jeos – Stripped down Ubuntu for Virtual Machines (tutorial here).

I need a custom build of postgres because I have to get it to work with Windows Active Directory which from the literature (blogs) I have read works.  I am somewhat skeptical but PostgreSQL will be a hard sale unless it does what the literature says so I am off to test the claims.

I like to start many tests on Ubuntu’s Jeos precisely because of its stripped down nature.  I eliminate a lot of possible cruft upfront.  This present’s some problems when building software like PostgreSQL.  After following the steps in the Jeos tutorial of course it would be easy to say:

sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-client 

This would accomplish the task just fine but since I want a custom build it is a no go.  Just running the make script in the source distribution has issues too because PostgreSQL has more than it’s fair share of dependencies.  Enter apt’s build-dep.  Someone really thought this through for me already.  Bless you Debian and Ubuntu.  Working with tools like these is like a breath of fresh air after a day of working with the a great commercial “Enterprise” system.  It is true that people really exist who actually put thought into their products instead of a marketing website.  End Rant.  With a simple command you can get a list of dependencies that need to be built and installed for PostgreSQL (the -s means to not actually install anything, just a simulation).

sudo apt-get -s build-dep postgresql postgresql-client

Look over the list if you desire and now just take out the -s to actually do the build and install of all the dependencies that you need.

Next step, build PostgreSQL.  Coming soon.

Other Sources:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-sourcehandling.en.html

Directed Acyclic Graph

Directed Acyclic Graph.  Big Words, dag for short?  Interesting data model for the tool box.

Git uses this data structure to keep track of it’s repository, branches, etc.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph
• http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/

I have been representing a lot of data in a tree format as of late.  This data model looks like an interesting substitute… more general and flexible than the simple tree’s I use.  Something to read more about.