ldclient-rb gem updates no longer being published to Rubygems

[batter]

Is this a support request?
Yes

Describe the bug
It looks like the latest release for the ldclient-rb gem on Rubygems is 5.5.6, but the current release of the sdk gem is now 6.4.0.. Am I to understand that the ldclient-rb gem is no longer going to receive updates?

Is the recommended approach to bundle the launchdarkly-server-sdk gem instead?

Our LaunchDarkly integration currently displays a banner when we sign in stating that the SDK version we are using is no longer supported, even though we thought we were on the latest release since we have the latest released version of the ldclient-rb gem in our application bundle. Please advise, and consider publishing instructions of what to do (or putting instructions somewhere in your docs about that gem being deprecated)

FWIW I personally believe having it as a standalone gem makes sense and makes the integration more modular, like how Rails has ActiveRecord as standalone gem which can be used outside of Rails if desired.

[eli-darkly]

The gem name was changed three years ago. As described in the changelog (see 5.5.7, and the "Note on future releases" heading below that) and the online reference guide, the gem to use is launchdarkly-server-sdk.

[eli-darkly]

FWIW I personally believe having it as a standalone gem makes sense and makes the integration more modular, like how Rails has ActiveRecord as standalone gem which can be used outside of Rails if desired.

A standalone gem as opposed to what? I'm not sure of what you're suggesting here.

[batter]

A standalone gem as opposed to what? I'm not sure of what you're suggesting here.

Right now in order to get the previous functionality, it looks like you have to bundle in this gem and then do:

require 'ldclient-rb'

Since it was previously a standalone gem it seems like it would be nice to keep the contents of that directory in the repo as a standalone gem and have it be required into this gem.

[eli-darkly]

I'm sorry, I'm still having trouble understanding. The contents of what directory? What is the distinction you're making between the "standalone gem" and "this gem"?

The procedure for using the gem in an application has not changed. The name of the gem has changed. Otherwise it's built just the same as it always was.

[eli-darkly]

Again, the gem name has been what it is for over three years now. Plenty of customers have been using this SDK and we haven't had any other reports of this being a problem.

[batter]

The procedure for using the gem in an application has not changed. The name of the gem has changed. Otherwise it's built just the same as it always was.

Ok I inspected the contents of the gem and I see that now. My apologies for misunderstanding. I was confused because the new gem name states it is a server-sdk when in actuality it appears that it still primarily a client for interacting with the LaunchDarkly API. I guess I just don't understand the purpose of the name change since under the hood it is still the same as it was before (including the name of the files in the lib directory) and the only thing the new file name does is include the previously named library:

ruby-server-sdk/lib/launchdarkly-server-sdk.rb

Line 1 in 3f95e22

require_relative "ldclient-rb"

Thanks for clarifying this though.

[eli-darkly]

I was confused because the new gem name states it is a server-sdk when in actuality it appears that it still primarily a client for interacting with the LaunchDarkly API

Yes, it's a client in that sense, but it's for use by server-side code— for instance, a web application. There's a fundamental distinction in the LaunchDarkly product between server-side SDKs and client-side SDKs; the online documentation discusses this here: https://docs.launchdarkly.com/sdk/concepts/client-side-server-side

We standardized our SDK naming around this distinction several years ago, and changed gem/package/repository names accordingly (as well as the English-language names we use to describe them— for instance, note that the online docs and the readme of this repo all use phrases like "server-side Ruby SDK"). Right now the only Ruby SDK we have is a server-side one, but there could be a client-side one in the future to be used in different situations (for instance, within a command-line tool written in Ruby), which would then have client-sdk in its name.

[eli-darkly]

But we left ldclient-rb as the module name within code so that customers wouldn't have to modify all of their require lines.