anti-pattern

One more reason I avoid flying them whenever possible.

Ah, that isn't something I considered. I don't write my apps multi-threaded, so it shouldn't be an issue, but definitely good to be aware of.

Ah, well, nothing is foolproof. Yes, if you don't update your dependency list when dependencies are removed, they might get stale. But I keep up on that stuff and haven't ran into that problem yet. Even if I did, I'd rather have that problem than an app where all the dependencies are global.

Yes, but, if you test your classes in isolation, then you'll be forced to manually require each dependency at the top of the file.

Interesting. Why would the requires go stale? And how would you use a dependency you don't require? It wouldn't be possible to use it unless you required it. This of course assumes you're testing your classes in isolation.

I think a lot of this unfortunately comes from Rails. Rails hides a lot of complexity which creates "magic". And since most Rubyists come to Ruby from Rails, a lot of Rubyists have the bad habit of hiding complexity wherever possible. I was guilty of that myself. But I've noticed it slowly starting to change.

The best code is no code.

Thanks! Probably not, there aren't really any other products I get that excited about, and I like the idea of keeping it very niche.

Oh, interesting. Did they give a reason? Was it legal? MacRumors has been doing this for some time, I can't imagine that there's anything illegal about it.