Convenience library, like ActiveSupport or extlib, but without a single monkey-patch. It is also an API experiment.

Stand alone:

require 'unpatched'
include Unpatched

like("FooBar").but.underscore!
about(1).month.and(4).days.ago!

Is that too much sugar? Try this:

require 'unpatched'
include Unpatched::Unfancy
_('FooBar').underscore!

Still too much?

require 'unpatched'
Unpatched['FooBar'].underscore!

With Sinatra:

require 'sinatra'
require 'unpatched'
helpers Unpatched

get '/' do
  expires exactly(1.5).minutes.from_now!
  "Hey, ho, let's go!"
end

Short: You don't have to. But methods without one will always return magically enhanced objects. Since you never want to pass those on (otherwise, what's the point?), you can get vanilla objects by using an exclamation mark.

Rule of thumb: Use it at the end of your method chain.

gem install unpatched