= Faster Rubygems =

This gem makes loading rubygems much faster.

What it does is cache the location of files in your gem dirs, ex:

/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/jruby/{active_support, active_record}

it creates this file:

/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/jruby/.faster_rubygems_cache

Then it uses that instead of loading full blown rubygems.

Timing (on doze with ~ 50 gems installed):

no rubygems at all:

$ jruby -e 1 0.68s.

require 'rubygems' time:

$ jruby -rubygems -e 1

2.36s normal rubygems: -> 0.94s with faster_rubygems

time to do a rake -V (get rake version):

$ jruby -S rake -V

2.48s with normal rubygems: -> 1.50s with faster_rubygems

(rake installed into site_ruby and loaded without rubygems takes 1.41s).

Thus we see that loading of rubygems has decreased from 1.4s to between 0.1s and 0.3s

with mingw (windows).

normal rubygems:

$ timer ruby whichr 0.83s

with faster_rubygems:

$ timer ruby whichr 0.19s

linux:

$ time ruby -S whichr whichr ruby 1.9: 0.6s -> 0.13s ruby 1.8: 0.17s -> 0.09s

Thus we see that it helps startup time for 1.9 on Linux, but not much for 1.8 on Linux.

== installation ==

$ gem install faster_rubygems # installs faster_rubygems into your site lib, overrides normal rubygems

now there is a manual step that must be followed:

1.9

Set this environment variable: RUBYOPT=-rfaster_rubygems --disable-gems

1.8: Installs itself by default.

Note that full rubygems will still be loaded when necessary (for example when installing new gems). This is automatic.

Also note that using this reduces the memory footprint of your application by not having to load full rubygems, with its files and accompanying gemspecs, which are traditionally all re-loaded every time, but not with faster_rubygems.

== Rails ==

Unfortunately this gem does not greatly speed up rails--it speeds up any script that doesn't require full rubygems (which is most, but not rails).

If you want to speed up rails, you'll want to use the faster_require gem (though they do work together splendidly). http://github.com/rdp/faster_require

See http://github.com/rdp/faster_rubygems/blob/master/benchmarks.txt for a full breakdown and more benchmarks.

== Trouble Shooting ==

if you wish to revert back to normal rubygems, do the following:

$ faster_rubygems --unoverride

If all else fails in this process (it has typically worked fine), you can reinstall normal rubygems by downloading its package (.tgz) and running ruby setup.rb within it.

To regenerate cache files (should never really be necessary, but if you for some reason think yours are stale) do the following:

$ faster_rubygems # by default it recaches what it can

Most of the credit for this gem goes to gem prelude and some ideas by Charles Nutter.

== Related projects ==

rubygems (of course) http://github.com/fabien/minigems/tree/master 1.9's gem_prelude http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/191673 the Builder gem http://github.com/jeremyevans/zozo

Source/feedback:

http://www.github.com/rdp/faster_rubygems