From: "T. Onoma" <transami@...>
Date: 2003-11-23T12:46:05+09:00
Subject: Cascading class definitions effect objects

I'm doing some hard nosed analysis of AOP for Ruby (:pre, :wrap, etc.) as this 
is a feature I am most concerned with in Ruby2.

I am troubled by the follwoing code:

  class CookieCutter
    def eat
      puts "Yum!"
    end
  end

  cookie = CookieCutter.new

  cookie.eat  # => Yum!

  class CookieCutter
    def eat
      puts "Yuk!"
    end
  end

  cookie.eat  # => Yuk!

Is it right to have substantiated objects modifiable on the fly by 
redefinitions of their class? Do you know of any program that actually 
utilizes this? Ruby is *really* dynamic, perhaps a little too so. This seems 
exceptionally odd. I have never noticed this behaivor before, and I imagine 
most people do not b/c they *always define their classes before using them*. 
Analogous to the real world: when I make a cookie with a cookiecutter, all my 
previous cookies do magically change because I later change my cookiecutter. 
So I would expect that cookie would always be like CookieCutter class as it 
was when cookie was constructed. And that the only way to change cookie after 
that would be through singletons and extend. (And have remove_singleton and 
unextend too.)

This has big impact on AOP, duck typing and InterfaceContracts, as well.

-t0