From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2005-03-26T11:23:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Hash::MixIn and Python style Object#dict


On Sat, 26 Mar 2005, gabriele renzi wrote:
> Florian Gross ha scritto:
> > Anyway, does any part of this look useful to you?
> > I've heard quite a few requests for a Hash mix-in, but I'm not sure how 
> > to best make this available to the general public.
> I'm starting to think we could have a RubyBase package on RAA to provide 
> lots of useful mixins (basically for fat classes i.e. IO::Readable, 
> IO::Writable, String::MixIn, Array::MixIn, but also for new things).
> What do others think?

MetaRuby (http://artengine.ca/matju/MetaRuby/) provides that, with
examples implementing #undo/#redo, BitArrays, InstanceVariablesHash,
MethodsHash, FileAsString, ProcAsArray, ... And those examples are all
very short.

Incidentally I have found that letting the user define #[] and #[]= is a
bad idea because those methods are too complex (I mean those in Array and
String) and instead I make the user implement #put, #put_seq, #get,
#get_seq, for which I give extremely simple definitions.

I also use a mixin-based contract together with a mixin-based
implementation. I used to call it all ArrayMixin, HashMixin, etc., and
later changed the name because people found it was a bad name, and the
current names are worse because I confused two similar words in English
(it's a bad idea to assume my English is excellent just because I use a
lot of vocabulary: it's *not*). If I resume that project the names of the
three containers will change again (but all the rest will stay essentially
the same).

_____________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard -=- Montr�al QC Canada -=- http://artengine.ca/matju