On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Jim Weirich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sep 30, 2008, at 4:51 PM, Jim Freeze wrote: > >> One way (just one, mind you) is that if require_gem really required >> the gem. So, you would have >> >> require_gem 'gem_name_here' >> >> and the gem did the requiring of the files internal. > > NO! That way leads to madness. > > That was the function of the autorequire flag on older gemspecs. That lead > to early loading of code before the complete gem version requirements were > given. This could lead to incompatible version of the library being > required. > > It was also the root cause of causing require "FILE" to return false instead > of true. A bug the pragmatically effected absolutely no one (who checks the > return value of require?), but caused no end of questions because people > would do a require in irb and see the false and think the file wasn't > loaded. > > The autorequire flag was also the root cause of several other issues which > escape me at the moment. >
<sigh...> So, I did not realize that require_gem was such a loaded word. And somehow is sucked in autorequire. Who mentioned that? So, I am not surprised that there is no require_gem because there never was a require_gem 'gem_name'. So, to avoid any harmful effects of require_gem, I'm suggesting a new method. Let's call it bunny_foo_foo. That is surely a harmless method. This whole conversation started because I've been bombarded with complaints that rubygems is broken because there is no way to know what to require after installing a gem. In fact, these 'unnamed individuals' have identified the problem as two separate problems, 1) the naming of the gem and 2) the naming/path of the file to require. I really don't see a way around #1. I mean, how can you possibly know that the chunky_bacon gem is used for python comment parsing. But, the second issue is potentially solvable, but it will require an addition of an optional file (or possibly hook code) to a gem. So, a standard scenario would be this: sudo gem install bora_bora Then, in the ruby code we would have bunny_foo_foo 'bora_bora' Is that too abstract? Today, gem developers can solve this problem in the following manner: sudo gem install bora_bora .... require 'rubygems' require 'bora_bora' # look, no surprise here. where the bora_bora gem has included the file lib/bora_bora.rb with the contents require 'my/crazy/path/that/you/cant/guess' But, we can refactor these two lines into a single line require_gem 'bora_bora' I mean bunny_foo_foo 'bora_bora' # optional version follows So, here the file lib/bora_bora does not have to exist. It could possibly be lib/bootstrap.rb. This file will then require the correct files. You know, the mysterious ones that I've been getting complaints on. Also, notice there is no suggestion of autorequire here. This simply replaces the "require 'secret/path'". -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ Rubygems-developers mailing list Rubygems-developers@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rubygems-developers
