I'm glad someone else is coming with a solution other than maven. Maven is one complicated beast.
I don't get it. The FAQ implies they aren't using jar files, so are they providing a custom classloader instead? If they inherited multiple-version support from rubygems, how do they know which version I want visible?
See also buildr, which attempts to be a drop-in Maven replacement using a ruby DSL built on top of rake. http://buildr.apache.org/
And this is why having the main Ruby gem repository completely open source rocks :)
why is it in Ruby?
As opposed to, say, Clojure or Scala ?
Because the finished, mature, best in class ruby implementation is completely open source and is just sitting there for anyone to adopt, right now?
No need to re-invent the wheel. : )
Why write it in Clojure, as opposed to, say, Scala or JRuby?