On Nov 11, 2011, at 20:20 , Chad Perrin wrote:

> Using a constant could prove problematic.  As I said in an earlier
> response:
> 
>    I'm using the Gem::Version thing for now in part because I've seen
>    cases where for some reason a VERSION constant conflicts with
>    something else in the Ruby environment.  I haven't seen it in quite a
>    while, but I don't want to have to deal with that kind of issue.

According to my stats, I've got 526 releases that all use this pattern and I've never once had a problem with using the VERSION constant. "could prove problematic" sounds like urban legend to me more than a real issue.