From: Charles Oliver Nutter <headius@...>
Date: 2010-03-27T16:41:24+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:29063] Re: [Feature #1961] Kernel#__dir__

On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Caleb Clausen <vikkous@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, you are right. I tend to blur the distinction between subclassing
> and extending objects at runtime in my own thinking. But whichever it
> is, I'd rather not see a new type in ruby's semantics just to support
> this feature. A new keyword seems so much more straightforward.

A new keyword is less backward-compatible than adding methods to a
string instance (or a string subclass). 1.8 could simply make
__FILE__'s string additionally def dir; File.dirname(self); end and it
would be compatible

Of course, this is mostly academic for me...I'm just bikeshedding.
__DIR__ would be fine with me too, or a per-file hash so we don't have
to add future keywords (similar to __SOURCE_LINES)

- Charlie