From: dblack@...
Date: 2005-12-07T22:28:49+09:00
Subject: Re: injecting dynamic methods into a class

Hi --

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Martin DeMello wrote:

> David A. Black <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:
>>
>> Natural selection isn't connected to what we're talking about.  If you
>> mean we should ignore Matz, or find a way to coerce him into changing his
>> terminology to match a bunch of Google searches -- while, meanwhile, a lot
>> of newcomers to Ruby suffer because of how cool people think their names
>> for singleton classes are --  then I don't think you've got a sound or
>> respectful plan.
>
> Note that the language itself doesn't call it *anything*. Indeed, there
> isn't even an accessor for it, short of opening up its scope and
> returning 'self'.

I think that might change, though (I hope), once a long-term decision
is reached about the name and for that matter the implementation (if
it changes).

> So this is not equivalent to, say, suddenly deciding
> to call Hashes Dictionaries instead - indeed, it's more a jargon issue
> than a ruby-the-language one. Sort of akin to <=> coming to be called
> the spaceship operator, or #! the shebang line.

Not quite:

   ruby -ve 'class << 3; end'
   ruby 1.9.0 (2005-05-20) [i686-linux]
   -e:1: no singleton class for Fixnum (TypeError)

:-)  Also, with Matz discussing it so much, I'd put it in the category
of having official-name status.

But I know what you mean about jargon.  Just as people call objects
"underlying thingies" and so forth, there's no particular reason for
people not to use a term like "own class" or "eigenclass" (or "class a
soi", if they want to translate it into yet another language :-)
descriptively.  It's just that the burgeoning usage and positioning of
some of these terms have been unfortunate, in relation to the process
already underway.


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net

"Ruby for Rails", forthcoming from Manning Publications, April 2006!