From: David Garamond <lists@...6.isreserved.com>
Date: 2004-11-21T14:30:12+09:00
Subject: Re: several questions on using gems

Jim Weirich wrote:
> On Saturday 20 November 2004 09:36 pm, David Garamond wrote:
> 
>>but i wonder why rubygems doesn't hack Kernel#require to accept version
>>requirements as well. that way i can forget all about Kernel#require_gem
> 
> require works at a file level.  require_gem works at a package level.  There 
> is some confusion because (a) often packages often have the same name as 
> their main require file, and (b) rubygems allows you to specify a special 
> require file that is automatically required when the gem is loaded.
> 
> The difference is important because they are used differently.  Every file 
> that uses (for example) the Builder::XmlMarkup class should include 
> 'builder/xmlmarkup'.  But the require_gem statement for builder should more 
> centralized.  This is because you don't want to scatter explicit version 
> references throughout your code.  It is better to keep them in one place 
> (more or less). 
> 
> At least that's my current thinking on the topic.

well, can't the rubygem's Kernel#require hack detect that when the 
second (and third, ...) arguments are specified, then it's a gem 
require, not a file require?

Regards,
dave