From: Chris Alfeld <chris.alfeld@...>
Date: 2006-04-07T02:07:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Upgrading Compiled Version of Ruby

Well, this rarely happens.  Let's say that something.rb does get
removed from the ruby distribution between version X and Y.  Well, now
any ruby program written for X that has
  require 'something'
is going to break in Y.  So Y is no longer backwards compatible with
X, which is undesirable.

Second, even if it does happen, each major version of ruby has it's
own directory in <prefix>/lib/ruby, i.e., <prefix>/lib/ruby/1.8,
<prefix>/lib/ruby/1.9, etc.  So even if a file did get removed the old
file wouldn't be in the new directory.

If you're still concerened, you could always 'rm -rf
<prefix>/lib/ruby/<version>' before running make install.  Or do a
make install into a new install path and do a directory diff and then
do a make install into your real install path.

c.