[ruby-talk:14313] SV: Re: how change instances class

[[ruby-talk:14287] Shugo Maeda:]
> > Say, that a instance at first is known as belonging to a fairly
> > general class,nd when
> > we gather more information, it turns out to belong more
> > precisely to a subclass.
...
> I think it is dangerous to change classes of instances.
> Do you really need it?

Don't know yet. I'm just extending Ruby with
natural-language/human-cognition similar behaviour (for later use in
powering language learning with the same interactivity you get when learning
Python, Ruby and peers), and since VHLL's, including Ruby, in some areas
seem to allow a close mapping, I'm just exploiting that fact.

Of course there is a huge difference between natural language and even
VHLL's, and for good reasons. But there are also some striking similaritis,
that makes you think that language developers found some of the same
principles valuable, as did the human language capacity in evolution.

> You can extend objects with mixin modules.

Yes, that's nice for more dynamic things.

again:
> I think it is dangerous to change classes of instances.
> Do you really need it?

Let me give an example of a (maybe) natural class-change operation, in human
dialog context: (This is purely fictional. I include it only in case that
someone might be interested)

Language input .......Human Language Interpreter does:
I see something 	=> instance of Something
It is a person   	=> change class of the instance to Human
It is a woman     => mix-in Female
No, it is a man	=> un-mix Female and mix-in Male
He looks Asian	=> mix in Asian
He is smiling     => indicate that smile is active
It is Haruki Murakami!	=> check if there is merge viloations, if not then
merge the instance into the Haruki Murakami instance, which does already
exist in the knowledge bank.

Is the smiling person an author? 	=> Yes. And a famous one too. [references
to the 						mentioned person are changed to Haruki Murakami 						instance,
which has an Author mix-in]

Is Haruki Murakami smiling? 		=> Yes, he is smiling. [information merged
from the 						temporary instance into the Haruki instance]

Does Haruki Murakami exist?		=> Yes, [in the knowledge base, he is
represented by 						an instance of subclass of Something]

This is purly fictional, but I think there is a lession to be learnt from
such an experiment: (1) Human language and thinking is extremely dynamic and
ready to accept new information. VHLL's is much less far away from this than
system languages. (2) The basic similaritis, when they do exist, between
VHLL's and human languages are largely hidden by human language
irregularities and taxonomic non-functional traditional grammar
descriptions.