From: Daniel Brockman <daniel@...>
Date: 2005-07-29T14:57:38+09:00
Subject: Re: What's so special about operators, built-in classes and modules?

Jim Weirich <jim@weirichhouse.org> writes:

[Nice treatise on repeated inheritance snipped.]

Thanks for writing that up, it was a good read.

Unfortunately, while it did answer my question as stated,
it did not answer the question I *meant* to ask. :-)

> So, in summary, why is diamond (repeated) inheritance not
> a problem in Ruby modules?
>
> Because the memory layout issues that force multiple
> copies of a base class just don't exist in Ruby.

So you agree that the issue of diamond inheritance is
completely unrelated to the class/module distinction.

Is that correct?

I want to know because the diamond bogeyman is constantly
brought up when talking about the feasibility of unifying
modules and classes.  (When asked to be more specific, the
person who brought it up will generally become either silent
or seemingly very confused.)

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>