From: "T. Onoma" <transami@...>
Date: 2003-11-23T19:46:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Cascading class definitions effect objects

On Sunday 23 November 2003 10:44 am, george.marrows@ps.ge.com wrote:
> > 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?
>
> I haven't seen any Ruby program that uses this, but...
>
> I use a language at work (Magik, proprietary) that has the same feature,
> and we use it absolutely all the time to debug and modify running programs
> in the course of development. It's very powerful and a great time-saver. I
> hope that Ruby IDEs (like FreeRIDE) will offer the same feature for Ruby
> debugging, if they don't already.

Nice, I can see how it would be useful in this regard. A very valid and 
interesting use.

> So, yes, it complicates semantics and VMs, but no, please don't get rid of
> it!

I can't talk for how it might effect RITE VM. But I would think at the very 
least there should be a way to "class freeze" at object. (Note that freeze 
dosen't do it.)

-t0