GSoC Final Report

Organisation : Ruby

Project: rubygems.org

Project page: Recursive tree view for gem dependencies

Mentors: Aditya Prakash and Qiu Chaofan

Recursive tree view for gem dependencies

Abstract

This project would add a feature on the rubygems.org website to give an option on each gem web page to show a tree/DAG of all transitive dependencies needed by that gem. In one of the issue that lead to this project, a user talks about how some users download a gem based of it’s transitive dependencies and how they need to keep a mindmap of these transitive dependencies to conclude whether or not to use the gem. This project will help such users get a better idea of whether that gem is for them or not.

Road Map

Front end

List of dependencies for that particular gem
Arrow before each dependency which when clicked will display all of that gem’s dependencies
This keeps happening for all dependencies on the page. Once a dependency is clicked, it can’t be clicked again (only toggled for hiding its dependencies).
All dependencies are divided by runtime or development scope
Both dependencies and scopes are togglable

Back end

Write a controller to use gem name and version to find its dependencies
Use rubygem code to find best version for each dependency based on it’s requirement
Controller should render html and json (for ajax clicks)
write functional and integration tests

The Story So Far

First created a web page that displays all the transitive dependencies list in ascending order
- It was taking too long to load and not very user friendly
Created basic webpage with toggling
Added ajax request to find transitive dependencies but creating a js file in view
Made toggling possible to open and close dependencies
Moved the js file to asset pipeline thus making ajax requests client side
Added functional test case for controller and integration test for js
Seperated view as runtime and development dependencies, also togglable to be hidden

Code Contribution

Acknowledgement

I’d like to thank my mentors Aditya Prakash and Qui Chaofan for always monitoring my progress, immediately responding and guiding me whenever I needed help. I know I asked a lot of doubts and they helped me every time. I also know I must have been a little difficult to work with, so thank you for having the patience. I owe my wholehearted thanks and appreciation to the entire team of ruby and rubygem.org for selecting me for this project and for their assistance during the entire project work.