Re: Module#define_method "send hack" fails with Ruby 1.9

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Timothy J. Wood wrote:

>
> On Feb 22, 2006, at 7:41 AM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> [...]
>> Besides, i don't think that there's a point in having private/protected in
>> Ruby. It's the feature I least care about. Especially because:
> [...]
>
>  I care about private methods actually being private.  One example; when 
> writing gems with a binary extension component, I find myself writing classes 
> half in Ruby and half in C with many of the C methods being private due to 
> either having horrible calling conventions that shouldn't be exposed or 
> worse, being something that could cause a crash if used incorrectly.
>
> -tim

i know what you're driving at - but i used to do alot of work with the java 2d
and 3d apis.  there were a whole bunch of methods made private that i really
needed to be able to use due to a design flaw.  whilst i understand the
concept behind making something private i feel it's making, in addition to the
assertion that 'you should not use this', and more dangerous one that 'i have
not screwed it up.'  it's because of the latter that i've grown skeptical of
it's usefulness.  a note in the docs, 'use this at your own risk', should
really suffice.  if people choose to use it they get what they asked for.  the
whole concept behind 'private' and 'open source' is somewhat bizarre anyhow.

my 2cts.

-a

-- 
judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
- h.h. the 14th dali lama