9-Feb-2006
  Done:
   All common environment, database and cursor functions are in. They are also
   _fully_ unit tested and are in production under heavy use. There are a
   few missing, like pget.

  Limitations:
   If Ruby process exits and there are any open cursors (your program did not
   close them) the process will SEGV. This is due to dbc_free trying to close
   the cursor(s), even though the DB may already be closed. This will be fixed
   by keeping track of open cursors and automatically closing then when
   db->close is called, either by calling close or during finalization. Other
   than messing up your BDB environment, the SEGV is larglely harmless (but
   annoying). It should never happen if your program is written correctly.