From: Roger Pack <rogerdpack2@...>
Date: 2010-09-04T01:55:16+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:32046] Re: merging nokogiri to ext/

> What is the reason to unbundle rexml?

The complaint I have heard once is if people had rexml code from 1.8,
and then upgrade to 1.9, they were no longer able to build the same
XML output as they used to be able to under 1.8.  Since there was no
gem versioning, it was harder to go back than it would have been had
it been a gem.  I for one have no idea how to change the version of a
bundled library.

>> What is the reason to bundle nokogiri?
>
> REXML has many faults. �I can go in to detail with each, but I *think*
> most people (who are not new to Ruby) know about them.
>
> I think it is important that Ruby ships with a well maintained,
> performant, easy to use, standard abiding XML parsing library. �I believe
> nokogiri surpasses REXML in all of these fields.

That is true.  So I guess it makes sense to bundle nokogiri (as a gem)
instead of including rexml, as it would make the "std lib" more
robust.  Dunno if the "extra dependencies" issue is too bit though...

-r