From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2007-09-01T03:00:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Pragmas in Ruby 1.9

On 8/31/07, Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@sun.com> wrote:
> David Flanagan wrote:
> > 2) If we need to introduce more general pragmas, I suggest overloading
> > Kernel.require.  It should behave as usual if passed a string.  But it
> > can handle pragmas if passed a hash.  Some possible examples (using Ruby
> > 1.9 hash syntax):
> >
> >   require encoding: "utf-8"
> >   require unsafe: "fibers"
> >   require thread-model: "concurrent"
> >   require version: 1.9
> >   require decimal: true
> >   require strict: true
>
> If this ever happens, I hope it's first accompanied by a standardized
> mechanism for extending (without replacing) require. Already rubygems
> and rails add their own require logic, and there's complications in both
> to make sure they work right. A standard way to extend require's
> behavior programmatically without physically replacing require would
> help guarantee future require extensions don't break old ones.

Completely and totally agreed. I'd actually want to see two mechanisms
for this -- one for adding new pragmas and one for overloading
standard require.

IMO, it'd be better if Kernel#require weren't overridable and offered
a different function for require extensions.

-austin
-- 
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