From: Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@...>
Date: 2005-08-29T20:29:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Method behaves differently when called using #send

Hi,

In message "Re: Method behaves differently when called using #send"
    on Mon, 29 Aug 2005 06:46:22 +0900, "Trans" <transfire@gmail.com> writes:

|BUT this would BREAK old programs. Many of us have depended on the fact
|that #send shoots past access controls. Now I'm not saying it's
|necessarily a bad idea --certianly the ! can be used for more than just
|in place modifiers, that's fine. So I'll go along if Matz really wants
|to do this, but it would mean a lot of code fixes.

Right.  But Ruby2 is the only place to make it happen, when we want to
make an incompatible change.

|The idea is that if we simply allow a string to follow the
|receiver-dot, eg.
|
|  a."meth"
|
|Then this way of calling a method falls right in line with what is
|wanted: a send that does not bypass access --you can't even use it
|without a receiver, which is fine, b/c in that case #send would be fine
|to use anyway.

Excuse me, but I don't get it.  a."meth" to invoke private "meth"?
How can we invoke a method specified by a variable foo?

|I think people worry that it will open up the language to all sorts of
|crazy method names, like:
|
|  johnny."run down the street!"

Stringified method names are good way to specify weird looking method
names, along with :"foo bar baz" syntax, if we really want them (but I
doubt we need them).  But giving it visibility control semantics is
obviously overuse.

							matz.