From: Ross Bamford <rosco@...>
Date: 2005-12-06T18:02:35+09:00
Subject: Re: injecting dynamic methods into a class

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 03:14:12 -0000, Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com>  
wrote:

> Ross Bamford wrote:
>>  I know I'm new, but humour me if you will ?
>>  Firstly, what's wrong with 'singleton'?
>
> [snippage]
>
> It doesn't really bother me. But there is some confusion with
> the Singleton pattern, and with other similar usages.
>

Now I've spent some time with the lingo, I'm not especially bothered  
either. But when I first started reading Ruby it was confusing enough to  
make me think twice about learning ocaml instead. I see the confusion with  
Singleton, but to be honest it felt 'right-ish' to me nevertheless. I was  
searching around trying to find out what an Eigenclass was, and when I  
found it described as 'singleton class' that set me on the right road. It  
doesn't exactly fit, but it's not a million miles away either.

>> I'm sure this is an ongoing debate, and I don't want to tread on any   
>> beliefs, but I just thought I'd offer a perspective from a fresh pair  
>> of  eyes. Is there a serious movement to replace 'singleton'?
>
> Some people want to change it, I think. If it must be changed, I
> would favor something like "singular class" (and I agree with your
> assessment of "ad hoc"). Some have suggested "eigenclass" -- and I
> admit this is a cool-sounding word, reminding me of my math and physics
> (and German) in college. But I can't really advocate it seriously.
>

Eigenclass is definitely l337er ;) Singular class could work I think, for  
the reason I mentioned above - it's the idea that it applies to a single  
instance. Metaclass also seems to fit, but again I think the meaning of  
meta is being gradually relaxed by popular usage (much like ad-hoc I  
guess, but the other way around).

Whatever happens I hope the powers that be bear in mind that Ruby is  
becoming ever more widespread, so whatever ends up being chosen needs to  
in some way lead the newbie to the idea of a class that applies to an  
object (instance class? Seems like a contradiction in terms...)

-- 
Ross Bamford - rosco@roscopeco.remove.co.uk
"\e[1;31mL"