From: Matthew Smillie <M.B.Smillie@...>
Date: 2005-12-09T01:11:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Are my metaprogramming underpants showing?

On Dec 8, 2005, at 6:35, Daniel Sheppard wrote:


> Considering that there seems to be at least one mandatory argument
> (api_key), you could do:
>
> require 'calibre/functor'
>
> functor_factory = lambda { |*symbols|
>     Functor.new { |op, *args|
>         new_sym = symbols+[op]
>         # if args.empty?...
>     }
> }
> Flickr = functor_factory[]
>
> Flickr.test.echo.momma("api_key" => "something long", "foo" => "bar")
>

Maybe this makes me sound thick, but then again, enlightenment is the  
reason I'm posting.

Given that the code below is functionally equivalent, what's  
beneficial about using a lambda expression?  It strikes me as a  
requirement imposed by using the Functor class more than anything.

class Flickr
   def initialize (method = ['flickr'])
     @method = method
   end

   def method_missing(method_id, *params)
     new_method = @method + [method_id]
     if params.empty?
       self.class.new(new_method)
     else
       puts "call: http://flickr.com/services/rest/method=# 
{new_method.join('.')}"
       p params
     end
   end
end

flickr = Flickr.new
flickr.test.echo.momma("api_key" => "something long", "foo" => "bar")

thanks again for the input,
matthew smillie.



----
Matthew Smillie            <M.B.Smillie@sms.ed.ac.uk>
Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems
University of Edinburgh