From: Thomas Hafner <thomas@...>
Date: 2009-04-23T07:40:07+09:00
Subject: hygienic startup file

Hello,

a startup file to be loaded by RUBYOPT should have minimal side
effects. I guess, this pattern will do it:

  class << Object.new
    FOO = ... # will not override FOO if defined before
    BAR = ... # will introduce BAR intermediately
    ...
    # Use the constants above to do some wanted side effect on an
    # object hold by a global variable, e.g. $LOAD_PATH :
    $:.unshift(FOO, ...)
  end
  # no more BAR visible here

Is there a canonical way to achive this kind of hygiene?

Regards
  Thomas