[ruby-core:29055] Re: [Backport #2723] $: length affects re-require time of already loaded files

> Shugo,
>
> Not sure if you were looking for a response, but yes I do think an improv=
ement should be made over what is in SVN trunk. $: and $" are ever growing =
as the number of gems used increases, and while is understandable that load=
ing a new file would be affected by this, it's unexpected that already load=
ed files would see a performance hit too. While SVN trunk improves on this,=
 time spent searching for already loaded files it is still one of the large=
st factors in my application startup.

I keep thinking this may be avoidable by something that caches
directory lists unless a directory has changed (i.e. unless the fstat
time of a directory has changed).  Something like this may help.

Until then did you try faster_require? It caches locations to avoid
File.stat's when looking up locations.
-rp