From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-04-04T23:04:43+09:00
Subject: Re: [EVALUATION] - E03 - jamLang Evaluation Case Applied to Ruby


"Ilias Lazaridis" <ilias@lazaridis.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:d2rgtn$gaf$1@usenet.otenet.gr...
> Robert Klemme wrote:
> > "Ilias Lazaridis" <ilias@lazaridis.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> > news:d2r96v$c9c$1@usenet.otenet.gr...
> [...]
>
> >>I've understood now the problem.
> >>
> >>-
> >>
> >>The Ruby Object Model does not contain reflective MetaClasses, which
> >>would enable to apply metadata even to methods.
> >
> > I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this.  You can indeed access
classes
> > in Ruby.  So I'd say there *are* MetaClasses.  It's just that there is
no
> > persistent representation of methods which you could augment with
> > additional data.
> [...] - (some examples)
>
> ok, there are metaclasses, which are not fully(!) reflective (as already
> showcased due to the missing possiility to recreate the
class-definition).
>
> [E.g. Smalltalks object model is fully reflective (classes are instances
> of metaclasses).]

If that's the criterion I'd say that is indeed fully reflective:

>> class Foo;end
=> nil
>> Foo.class
=> Class
>> Foo.kind_of? Class
=> true
>> Foo.kind_of? Module
=> true
>> Class === Foo
=> true
>> Module === Foo
=> true
>> Foo.class.ancestors
=> [Class, Module, Object, Kernel]

In spite of that you cannot recreate a class definition because you cannot
extract method bodies from the meta data.  All you get is method names via
#instance_methods and their arity.  Does Smalltalk provide more?

Cheers

    robert