[ruby-talk:15125] Re: How do I alias a class method?

On Tue, 8 May 2001, Sean Russell wrote:
> > possibly; but "alias" is not only a name that is different, it is not
> > calling a method, it is a reserved word.  Notice that there is no comma
> > between the two arguments! I would guess it was created this way because
> > it was the first such feature added in Ruby, but Matz should know the
> > story quite exactly :-)
> Doh!  Ok, I assumed a typo and inserted a comma when I tried this (I had done 
> something earlier with alias_method, but didn't remember alias).  Anyway, 
> which is more "proper"?  Do they behave the same?  Is one more efficient than 
> the other?  If "alias" existed first, why was "alias_method" implemented and 
> added to core Ruby?
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> Sorry... I meant that to go to the list.  :-/

There should be no visible efficiency difference. I still always use the
reserved keyword "alias", but I'd also agree if it was planned to remove
it in a future version. The reason is consistency. Some of us also think
that this: 

class A < B
	blah
end

should change to:

A = Class.new(B) {
	blah
}

and similar things.

matju