From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2005-02-01T11:40:46+09:00
Subject: Binding precedence for first symbol arguments

I've been thinking about the last thread on module methods and
namespaces, and also the idea of method modifiers. There are times when
I just want one method that does a number of different but related
things. Th obligatory silly example,

class T
def dothis(sym, *args)
when :oneway
puts "One Way! #{args}"
when :another
puts "Another! #{args}"
end
end
end

t = T.new
t.dothis :oneway

But we can also do this without the space,

t.dothis:another

IMO that's nice. And allows me to get the effect that I want. What
would be even more convenient thgouh is if this later form, lacking the
space, would give the method precedence, so we could do,

t.dothis:another.upcase

and it would work, executing #dothis before #upcase. Then, also,
secondary parameters could be given without the initial comma. So,

t.dothis :oneway, 1

could instead be written,

t.dothis:oneway 1

I do not think this would present any ambiguity to the parser. In fact
I thnk it can be take to any number of initial symbols.

t.dothis:oneway:twoway:threeway
Where each subsequent symbol is another argument.

T