packaging rails applications in a gem

Question

i am thinking of releasing a rails application as a gem. it's sort of a wiki application which also stores user data in the db directory. what would be a good way to go to avoid the user data being overwritten, when a gem update is done?

example:

1) user gets version 1 of the gem/application. the data is stored in the gem directory.

2) user performs a gem update and gets version 1.1 -> the data is lost! (because there is a second directory now)

my questions are:

• does it make sense to package rails applications in gems?
• are there example for other rails applications that are packaged as a gem?
• how would the problem with the user data be solved?

thanks! z

Answer 1

I guess using SVN or Git is the best way to distribute and update your application.

Answer 2

Gem is a bad idea for an application.

I would look into Warbler: http://caldersphere.rubyforge.org/warbler/