From: Ross Bamford <rosco@...>
Date: 2005-12-06T19:12:34+09:00
Subject: Re: getting around access control

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 07:33:10 -0000, <ara.t.howard@noaa.gov> wrote:

> On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Joel VanderWerf wrote:
>
>> These are probably not helpful:
>>
>> irb(main):012:0>   c.instance_eval{ p send(:meth) }
>> 42
>> => nil
>> irb(main):013:0>   c.instance_eval " p meth "
>> 42
>> => nil
>>
>> The strange thing is that s/protected/private/ avoids the error:
>>
>> irb(main):014:0> class C
>> irb(main):015:1> private
>> irb(main):016:1> def m2; 43; end
>> irb(main):017:1> end
>> => nil
>> irb(main):018:0>   c.instance_eval{ p m2 }
>> 43
>>
>> (ruby-1.8.2, anyway)
>>
>> The original error (in the protected case) seem uncalled for....
>
> [.. snip ..]
>
> that 'private' methods __are__ allowed is really strange indeed.
>

I actually really like Ruby's notion of private - just that you can't call  
the method with a receiver. When I first started with IRB I'd often look  
for methods using Something.methods.sort . It took me ages to realise why  
I was missing so many very common ones - because they're 'private' so that  
they can only be called on self.

I think it's really flexible :)

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