From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2008-12-04T03:01:33+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:20264] Re: Behavior: autoload calls rb_require() directly

Paul Brannan wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 11:49:49PM +0900, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
>> require plugins would only advise the require process of additional  
>> paths, extensions, what have you. They would not perform the actual  
>> load. Yes, it would still be order dependent, but any plugin in the  
>> chain could opt out of finding a library and allow the other mechanisms  
>> to fire.
> 
> How is that different from overriding require, which also allows
> opt-out?

If someone installs a new require that doesn't call the old one, the 
entire chain breaks. With a plugin, the require process would be pulling 
from the plugins, and a nil result means the next in the chain is tried. 
The only way to stop the sequence would be to successfully return a result.

> Also, I thought on 1.9 rubygems was no longer using the require hook,
> but instead modifying $:?  (at least, that's what I remembered coming
> out of the discussion at 2007 rubyconf)

I don't know.

- Charlie