[ruby-core:65572] Re: is there a name for this?

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Yukihiro Matsumoto <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> That's correct for CRuby implementation. Other implementation may use
> different technique and terms, for example, mruby uses the term
> target_class.  I often use "surrounding class/module" to explain the
> behavior.
>
>                                                         matz.
>

Oh yes.

The guide documents constants conceptually with nothing (to my knowledge)
depending on the interpreter.

Albeit the chosen name could be inspired by CRuby's internal terminology,
it would be presented to the reader as a formal definition. Let's imagine
that there's a section explaining nesting and at the end of it the guide
says:

     We define "cref" to be the first element of the nesting,
     or Object if the nesting is empty.

That would be just vocabulary, a name we introduce for convenience. Such
term would allow the guide to just say, for instance:

    A constant appearing after a +class+ or +module+ keyword
    is checked in the cref and only in the cref.

That's the goal, to be able to express that and other things in such a
brief way.

We could define that concept as "cref", or "target class/module", or
"surrounding class/module"... It is really up to us, whatever you guys
prefer.