Part of the problem here is that in the ridiculously fast-moving Ruby and Rails world, you need <i>something</i> reasonably stable. The standard libraries coul

Part of the problem here is that in the ridiculously fast-moving Ruby and Rails world, you need <i>something</i> reasonably stable. The standard libraries could speed up, but would then need to worry more about bad ideas making it in with no way to take them out. Backwards compatibility isn't optional here. Ruby could very, very quickly become a giant ball of hair if we're not careful what we put in, because nothing can come back out. Rails plays fast and loose with this, but having the language itself do so is really, really bad.