It would be nice to have a light tap task that will compile tap into a single script for quick loading, and to 'freeze' a particular distribution.

desc "Compiles tap into a single rb script"
task :compile do
  # interesting proposal -- much, much quicker loading on 
  # windows where reading files is apparently quite slow.
  #
  # Notes:
  # - Task files should not be included since they may contain
  #   manifest information that implicitly uses the path name.
  # - Autoloaded files should not be included either (and in 
  #   some cases maybe a require should be turned into an 
  #   autoload?)
  #
  @@sources = {}
  def require(file)
    result = super
    
    tap_file = "#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/lib/#{file}.rb"
    return result unless File.exists?(tap_file)
    
    content = File.read(tap_file)
    content.gsub!(/^require\s+['"](.*)['"]$/) do |match|
      @@sources.has_key?($1) ? @@sources[$1] : match
    end
    @@sources[file] = content
    
    result
  end
  
  require 'tap'
  File.open("taq.rb", "w") do |target|
    target << @@sources['tap'].gsub(/\r?\n^\s*\#.*$/, "")
  end
end