This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Eric Hodel. Original Post: How to Name Gems Feed Title: Segment7 Feed URL: http://blog.segment7.net/articles.rss Feed Description: Posts about and around Ruby, MetaRuby, ruby2c, ZenTest and work at The Robot Co-op. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Eric Hodel Latest Posts From Segment7

If you went to the first round of RubyConf lightning talks you saw me say this already, but I got enough applause that this needs wider dissemination.

Here is my STRONG recommendation on how to name gems:

Use underscores

• fancy_require
• newrelic_rpm
• ruby_parser

This matches the file the user will require and makes it easier for the user to start using your gem. gem install my_gem will be loaded by require 'my_gem'.

Use dashes for extensions

• net-http-persistent
• rdoc-chm
• autotest-growl

If you're adding functionality to another gem use a dash. The dash is different-enough from an underscore to be noticeable. If you tilt the dash a bit it becomes a slash as well, making it easier for the user to know what to require. gem install net-http-persistent becomes require 'net/http/persistent'

Don't use UPPERCASE letters

OS X and Windows have case-insensitive filesystems by default. Users may mistakenly require files from a gem using uppercase letters which will be non-portable if they move it to a non-windows or OS X system. While this will mostly be a newbie mistake we don't need to be confusing them more than necessary.