The RubyGems integration in 1.9 merely adds all the highest version  
gem's lib/bin/etc directories into load path upon interpreter startup  
(then lazily loads in the full rubygem library in the event that a  
constant or method on Gem is accessed or a gem of an earlier version  
is requested).  This removes the require/load hack but will not solve  
the problem identified with autoload per se.  If the autoloaded file  
is in a gem it will be found in 1.9 since those paths are on the load  
path, but if the intent is autoload to use require (or a custom  
require) then its not a feature that is currently supported.

-rich

On Dec 22, 2007, at 8:58 AM, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

> Regarding the former, autoload is still done by direct C function
> callm but it is perhaps solved by RubyGems integration in 1.9, but I
> have not yet confirmed.  Anyone?