From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2005-05-05T08:50:19+09:00
Subject: Re: [RCR] Object#inside_metaclass?

Hi --

On Thu, 5 May 2005 Ara.T.Howard@noaa.gov wrote:

> On Thu, 5 May 2005, David A. Black wrote:
>
>> Isn't that the case we talked about before where you clarified that
>> you didn't think it should be 'true' for singleton classes in general?
>> If not, them I'm retroactively confused again about the whole thread
>> and the use of terminology.
>
> lol.  i've never heard of anyone being retroactively confused - but i'm sure 
> i
> am all the time.  i think.  maybe.  i'm not sure.
>
> anyways... this is the right __behaviour__ if not the right name.  i'll 
> change
> it to inside_singleton? or something in my source.
>
> too bad you can't edit usenet - anyone would think/know i'm a complete dolt 
> if
> reading this thread!

Well, I think I may be the dolt, since I always seem to be present
when these misunderstandings come up (me and Jim, me and you...) :-)
But in fact I think it does come back to the terminology problem.
inside_singleton? is a little unclear, and inside_singleton_class? is
a bit lengthy  Maybe the best name would be just:  singleton_class?
So then you would have:

    obj = Object.new
    c = (class << obj; self; end)

    c.singleton_class?   # true

    class << obj
      singleton_class?   # true
    end

etc.  This replaces the explicit "inside" term with the implicit fact
that, inside a class definition, self is the class -- so "insideness"
is already encapsulated in the self mechanism.

(At some point I'll try to go back and look at the examples and figure
out whether I have anything substantive to say about the whole idea
:-)


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net