From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2004-09-16T08:39:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Hacking the Ruby interpreter

In article <cC32d.7251$n%3.583046@twister.southeast.rr.com>,
Tim Hunter  <cyclists@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>I've got an idea for a hack^H^H^H^H enhancement to the interpreter that I'd
>like to try out. If it works, I was thinking of distributing it as a patch.
>If somebody wanted to use it, they'd have to d/l the Ruby tarball, apply
>the patch, build, and install.
>
>Does this sound like a reasonable approach? Any catches I'm overlooking? Of
>course the license would be the same as Ruby's.
>
>What version of Ruby should I use? I suppose the stable 1.8.1, unless of
>course 1.8.2 becomes production before I'm done, which is possible.
>
>My plan is to simply check out the v1_8_1 sources from CVS, make the
>changes, and make a patch with cvs diff. Is this the right approach?
>

What enhancements are you planning to add?  There are a couple of problems 
with things like this:

1) Not many people are going to apply the patch.  It's a lot more work 
than installing a package and it could make your version of Ruby 
incompatible with others.
2) You could find that your patch needs to be adjusted everytime a new 
version of Ruby comes out.  It'll probably be version-specific which again 
will limit it's adoption.

If you're trying to do a proof-of-concept with your patch, then perhaps 
you should submit an RCR and include your patch with it.  Then it might 
have a chance at making it into the standard Ruby distirbution.

Phil