[geos-devel] Initial ffi-geos beta release now available

[J Smith]

G'day list.

I just wrapped up a (very) beta ruby gem for the ffi-geos library and
it is now available on rubygems.org for anyone curious to see how the
current state of affairs is stacking up. This is a very beta release
that weighs in at a staggering version 0.0.1.beta1, and features:

- a preference towards the current GEOS svn HEAD, a.k.a. the upcoming
GEOS 3.3.0 release. It still works to some extent with previous GEOS
versions, although some tests will bomb out for various reasons.

- near feature parity with the PHP bindings. Hopefully I didn't miss
anything, but, y'know, "beta" and all that. This means all sorts of
new methods and functionality beyond the existing binary GEOS
bindings, although I've tried to maintain backwards compatibility as
much as possible while adding features where they make sense.

- uses the re-entrant CAPI, so you can thread stuff. I haven't really
tested the threading too much as I don't require it myself, but it
appears to be working. ("Beta"!!)

- pretty decent test coverage that works through 150 tests and 674 assertions.

- the library has been tested on with ruby MRI 1.8.7 and 1.9.2 on OSX
in both 32- and full-on 64-bit mode as well as linux in both 32- and
64-bit kernels, as well as JRuby 1.5 and 1.6 on these same platforms.
At the moment Rubinius is missing a couple of enum functions I'm using
but hopefully things will "Just Work" once that's fixed up. These
tests environments were in development only, so take note that I have
not used this gem in a production setting as yet. ("Beta"!)

- I don't have a Windows-based ruby environment handy, so I haven't
been able to test on Windows or write any of the required
Windows-specific code, so patches for that are welcomed. I do have a
bit of code I can add for MingW, however, if that helps anyone.

So, the curious and those with a soft spot in their hearts for
unproven beta software can install the gem to their hearts delight and
start peppering me with the inevitable bug and issue reports. The gem
is available for download at https://rubygems.org/gems/ffi-geos or via
"gem install --pre ffi-geos", while the github repo for bug reports is
available at https://github.com/dark-panda/ffi-geos .

Lastly, just to be clear, this is beta software, so anyone relying on
it for anything critical is nuts. I felt compelled to say that for
some reason. BETA!

Cheers

J