"Trans" <transfire / gmail.com> wrote in message

> Tobias, you misunderstand me. I am all for versioning. Its the
> implementation of it that I think has been problematic. Consider all
> your scripts with #require_gem. Would they work in an enviroment where
> the support packages were manually installed. No. You'd have to go back
> and change them to #require; or have created a rescue clause to deal
> with it to begin with; and thus more work to do in order to
> redistribute you programs. Rather I think there should be a standard
> method #require_version that Ruby supports out-of-the-box, and the libs
> should be stored in the typical fashion --with links to the lastest
> versions (examples of such excelent packaging systems include RubyX and
> Gobo Linux). Implementing in this manner would have, indeed, still can,
> thwart the issues with RUBYOPT.

This does sound like a very attractive alternative. Standard locations and
directory structure, plus one new directive for versioning.