From: Eero Saynatkari <ruby-ml@...>
Date: 2005-11-05T17:31:10+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby-dev summary 27393-27541

Trans wrote:
> In the past I always thought of ':' (boy that comes up a lot ;-)
> 
>  p "\244\242\244\244".jcode:chop

Yes, this is usually the syntax I prefer to illustrate selector namespaces.
They would also (visually) benefit from being constants (i.e. uppercase
rather than lowercase).

However, it seems that the name 'selector namespace' is a bit inaccurate
for the current implementation as it concentrates much more on the 'namespace'
than the 'selector' which is unfortunate. I would much rather see this:

   module NS
     def foo
       puts 'NS' + @foo
     end
   end

   class Foo
     def initialize
       @foo = 'foo'
     end

     def foo
       puts 'Foo' + @foo
     end
   end

   f = Foo.new
   puts f.foo               # Foofoo
   puts f.NS:foo            # NSfoo


Here there is no concrete namespace but rather a namespace is dynamically
created to facilitate selecting the implementation. Again, this is perhaps more
AOP-like than some would prefer and perhaps this is missing some benefits of
the other approach.

E.face[:cheek] = :tongue

   p "\244\242\244\244".JCode-chop

   p "\244\242\244\244".chop~JCode

   p "\244\242\244\244".jcode->chop

   p "\244\242\244\244".JCode#chop


> But I'm wondering if two colons could work,
> 
>  p "\244\242\244\244".jcode::chop
> 
> because a namespace is much like a module. Also maybe
> 
>  p "\244\242\244\244".(jcode)chop
> 
> By the way Facets can already do some stuff like this via:
> 
>   module JCode
>     def chop
>       ...
>     end
>   end
> 
>   class String
>     include JCode
>   end
> 
>   "\244\242\244\244".as(JCode).chop
> 
> Yep. If you guessed Functor, you are right.
> 
> T.

E