From: Ryan Leavengood <mrcode@...>
Date: 2001-10-30T08:44:52+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:23779] Re: RubyGems Status (was: Re: Some inspirations from REBOL)

> Release to CVS as quickly as possible!

Yes it would probably suck if I got hit by a truck or something.  But I
did email a tarball to a few key people before RubyConf so it wouldn't
be a complete loss.

> So you haven't considered my proposal of making them valid Ruby
programs
> by giving them a minimal Ruby header and then attching the binary
data?
> Would be no need to alter the interpreter for this...
> 
> I'm sure there are many flaws with this idea but would be nice to
> discuss...

Well I didn't realize you had made this proposal (or I missed it.)  Yes
this could certainly be done.  Something like:

require 'rubygems'
RubyGems.run($0)
__END__
<binary stuff>

The problem is that this format would require special handling by the
RubyGems system and it isn't consistent with the other file formats I've
created.  I would prefer that this "executable RubyGems" extension have
minimal impact on the core system.  Normal and executable gems should be
treated the same.

Another possible "trick" could be to have RubyGems look at $0 when it is
required:

(inside rubygems.rb):

if $0 =~ /rbg$/
   RubyGems.run($0)
end

You would use this like so:

$ ruby -rrubygems SomeGem-1.0.0.0.rbg

Of course for this all RubyGems files would need to start with __END__
so that Ruby doesn't try to run them itself.  But that isn't too bad.

But if in the long run if RubyGems is put in the core distribution and
used a lot then adding support to the core interpreter may not be that
bad of an idea.

Ryan Leavengood