From: Lennon Day-Reynolds <rcoder@...>
Date: 2004-06-25T13:44:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Is it considered Harmful?

That's exactly the problem -- by forcing one object into another
class, you require that one or both classes have sufficient knowledge
of the internal data representation of the other to be able to safely
make the switch. That kind of low-level manipulation usually stays
within a class for a reason.

The only real reason I can see to dynamically change the class of an
object would be in languages where there are static type constraints
that have to be satisfied. As it is, in Ruby, you can always just wrap
the original object in a proxy, or access it through an adapter that
supports all the public methods of the new class; it fits the "duck
typing" rule, without breaking encapsulation.

Lennon