From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2009-02-26T06:07:16+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:22502] Re: YASNP (Yet Another Selector Namespace Proposal)

Jim Weirich wrote:
> (1) If two selector namespaces are in scope, and they both define a 
> method of the same name, which one takes precedence?  (i.e. Assume that 
> namespaces X and Y both defined a method "to_xml" on Object, and that 
> both are in scope.  Which version will be invoked?)

In my prototype they're first-come, first-served. You can have many 
namespaces affect the same class and provide the same methods, and 
they're searched in "using" order:

module Foo; def to_s; 'here'; end; end
module Bar; def to_s; 'there'; end; end
using Foo => String
using Bar => String
puts 'hello'.to_s # => outputs "here"

It seems like the most straight-forward behavior to me.

> (2) With a particular namespace in scope, will there be a way to 
> explicitly invoke a conflicting method from a different namespace (i.e. 
> Assume that namespaces X and Y both define a method "to_xml" on Object.  
> Will there be a way to explicitly invoke the Y version of "to_xml" from 
> code that is currently in the scope of the X namespace.)

Probably not. This would probably be a rare case, but it would be a 
strong argument for making namespaces more fine-grained. Of course, Dan 
Berger's proposal of a per-call syntax would resolve this, but it's more 
verbose.

- Charlie