From: Daniel Brockman <daniel@...>
Date: 2005-07-28T01:42:39+09:00
Subject: Re: What's so special about operators, built-in classes and modules?

"Ara.T.Howard" <Ara.T.Howard@noaa.gov> writes:

>> That is a reasonable belief.  Indeed, I'm not completely
>> sure myself that unification would reduce net confusion.
>> So I'd be interested in seeing some arguments.
>
> well - classes can't [extend objects] [...]

Is that an argument in favor of unifying them?

>> Here is an example of an argument:
>>
>> Whenever you bring up the issue of modules vs. classes,
>> there will generally be at least one person who believes
>> that including a module is the same as copying its body.
>> This confusion would go away if the two were unified.
>
> this is a similar 'argument':
>
>    in c most people think that a definition like
>
>      int foobar (const char * string);
>
>    will prevent people from modifiying string.  it won't.
>    for that one needs
>
>      int foobar (const char * const string);
>
>    why not unify them?
>
> the answer is obvious: because they are differnet.

I agree.  My point is that Ruby's classes and modules are
very much alike.  If ‘const char *’ and ‘const char * const’
were very much alike, I'd be in favor of unifying them.
But since the two pointer types are not alike at all, your
analogy doesn't apply.

I'm talking about two very similar concepts that are
commonly mistaken for very different concepts, while you are
talking about two very different concepts that are commonly
mistaken for equal concepts.  Do you see the difference?

> a focus on clarifying doccumentation might be wiser in
> this case.

Documentation in always nice, but I'm afraid the quality of
the documentation is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

> and, in the end, certain people are simply going to have
> to be told to rtfm

Granted.

> not everything can be intuitive AND powerful.

But realize that what I'm saying is that Ruby is *not* more
powerful with classes and modules separate than it would be
with them unified.  I'm saying that Ruby would be equally
powerful (nay, more powerful) after the unification.

Would it be more intuitive?  I think so.

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>

    So really, we all have to ask ourselves:
    Am I waiting for RMS to do this?   --TTN.