From: David MacMahon <davidm@...>
Date: 2013-10-30T13:15:41-07:00
Subject: [ruby-core:58085] Re: [ruby-trunk - Feature #9064] Add support for	packages, like in Java


On Oct 30, 2013, at 12:54 PM, rosenfeld (Rodrigo Rosenfeld Rosas) wrote:

> David, I agree with you, and actually, I'd be already happy if "class" created the modules on the fly, but it can't without breaking compatibility, specially because it's not possible to know if the parents would be modules or classes...

Currently, using `module Foo::Bar` will raise NameError if Foo is not yet defined, so how would it break backwards compatibility if the behavior were changed to create all undefined parents as modules?  You might still end up with as error later if something else tried to create class Foo, so some cases would not benefit from this (just get a different error at a different point), but it would simplify the syntax for cases where Foo really is a module.

On a semi-related note, I find it mildly frustrating that all openings of a class requires specifying the same superclass.  Sometimes I just want to add a constant or simple method to a class, so it would be nice to be able to re-open that class without having to explicitly specify the same superclasses every time.  It would be nice if the following were allowed:

class Foo < Bar; end # class Foo extends Bar
class Foo; end       # class Foo still extends Bar

...and...

class Foo; end       # class Foo has Object as a "stand-in" superclass 
class Foo < Bar; end # class Foo replaces Bar as its "official" superclass

...and...

Of course, specifying conflicting explicit superclasses would still be an error.

class Foo < Object; end # class Foo has Object as its "official" superclass
class Foo < Bar; end    # error, inconsistent explicit superclass

Dave