From: "trans.  (T. Onoma)" <transami@...>
Date: 2004-09-29T07:13:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Best name for "this method" ?

On Tuesday 28 September 2004 05:27 pm, David A. Black wrote:
> Hi --
>
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, trans.  (T. Onoma) wrote:
> > On Tuesday 28 September 2004 05:44 am, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> > >   foo.methods[:new, :protected]   # if you need combination
> >
> > This line's got me thinking... How does one define a class []
> > constructor? For example Hash can be use like this:
> >
> >   Hash[:a=>1,:b=>2 ]
>
> class C
>   def C.[](...)
>   ...
>   end
> end

Duh! Thanks, I don't know why I thought there was something special about it.

> > And then I start to wonder why we can't just use the class name like a
> > method?
> >
> >   Hash(:a=>1, :b=>2)
>
> You can define such methods; for example, there's Integer.  A number
> of people (including me :-) aren't big fans of method names that begin
> with uppercase letters, but it can be done.

Right. Well then, I must propose that all such class names be constructor 
methods too. No sense in confusing things otherwise. By default:

  def AClass(*args, &blk)
    AClass.new(*args, &blk)
  end

But for something like Hash, it would be defined like Hash[].

MHO,
T.

P.S. Okay, this is where you tell me why this is a bad idea ;)