DISQUS

+1
The fact that GitHub diffuses the much needed attention from _the_ distribution mechanism for gems (rubyforge) is extremely unfortunate. A recipe for getting software to work should get back to gem install this that these. No sysadmin in his sane mind will ever do repo-diving on github.

I can assure you that when we created the String#chars method this has been publicly praised as the good choice. We've chosen a very specific method for a plethora of functionality that needd to be integrated in a safe way, and to blend it into the language we've used _one_ method.

The decision to do it like this was weighted and discussed and approved by quite some people as the most appropriate for the case.

If Ruby Core would care _at all_ about ActiveSupport (which is now the widest deployed gem in the world I think) they would think twice before introducing it in the version of the language without Unicode support.

There are more issues at play here. First of all, the Ruby core developers have this habit of only stating their intentions in Japanese on their own mailing list. Nobody ever warned the Rails core team about the fact that 1.8.7 will eat up Chars. When Manfred and I discovered the breakage it was already too late. Never have the Ru y developers considered the implications of them reclaiminv the chars method for the core String. If you followed the recent Ruby security fiasco with official update killing everything from Mongrel to god knows what...