[Rails-devel] External Libraries

[<ab...@o2...>]

    While playing around (still the on-tile symbols: not much time to do actual programming!) I noticed that at least Batik and log4j Rails uses are out of date. Newer versions are already available. This lead me to few questions:

(1) Why not update them? Updating involves some risk but considering the frequency of Rails updates there shouldn’t be any real risk of serious problems. While keeping up to date allows developers to use public JavaDoc which is usually (given for latest version) and use new features. Also upgrading in small steps is usually easier then updating in larger steps.

(2) Why are they placed in SVN? Why not require developers to have them installed where they prefer (and maybe use also in other projects)?

(3) Why are they placed directly in project root (the “lib” directory)? When opening the project in Eclipse they are visible just as source and data files.

(4) Why not setup Eclipse (preferably in project files so this will be done only once and not by each developer) so that JavaDoc and sources for those libraries are accessible? This would ease development.

(5) How to add such library? When experimentally I tried to add Batik 1.7 I had some problems with “doc” and “sample” sub-directories as Eclipse wanted to compile files placed there too (since “lib” is in the root folder...).

(6) Will anyone update those libraries?

    Adam Badura