I have been writing an application (game library) which embeds Ruby into
C as a scripting language, and it has been working beautifully so far.
However, I realize that I may need to distribute this application to
Windows and OS X machines, which may be a problem for those without the
time or skill to install the latest Ruby version.
I am wondering if I can package a .dll or .so dynamic library of Ruby in
the same directory of the main executable without including most of the
Standard Library. I believe this would save about 10-20MB, but it would
also remove unneeded baggage such as webrick, openssl, and rubygems from
the scripting environment.
I am not sure whether I want to build ruby without the stdlib, or
simply cherry pick the libs from the build output. I am also unsure how
and when Ruby loads these libraries when embedded in a host C
environment. Possibly during the call to ruby_init_loadpath()?