From: gabriele renzi <surrender_it@...>
Date: 2005-04-18T03:29:33+09:00
Subject: Re: All Quiet on the Western Front: Is Rails overshadowing Ruby?

Jim Weirich ha scritto:

>>I kind of wondered why you added require_gem instead of just overriding
>>require like I originally did, but I see that until RubyGems is in the
>>default distribution, it is the friendly thing to do.
>>
>>Also once you get to that point you still wouldn't need require_gem,
>>even for the version specification:
> 
> 
> Actually, there is an important difference between require_gem and require.  A 
> require statement is a request to load a particular file into the ruby image.  
> A require_gem statement activates (enables, selects) a versioned package.  

I think I already said this once long time ago, but I forgot the 
answer.. why name this method "require_gem" ? It is not the first time 
people get confused about it, and I think something like "use_gem" or 
"Gem.load" would be much better, showing that it does not really act 
like "require" but more like a configuration step.