From: Steve Litt <slitt@...>
Date: 2006-01-09T07:47:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Ideas on "Why Living Dangerous can be A Good Thing" in Ruby?

On Sunday 08 January 2006 05:04 pm, Gregory Brown wrote:
> On 1/8/06, Steve Litt <slitt@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > That's why I'm glad my electric stove has
> > lights saying which burners are still hot. And that's why I enjoy
> > programming in languages like Ruby, Python and Java, that protect me from
> > myself.
>
> Java:  Yes. (in the average scenario)
> Python:  Pretty much kinda maybe.
> Ruby: You'll shoot your eye out!  ;)

Everyone says that, but I don't see it (til it hits me in the eye? :-).

Maybe I'm just used to C, where the slightest mistake leads to a subtle bug 
that happens every couple weeks.

Sure, if I went out of my way I could make Ruby do corruptable things, whereas 
with C I cannot avoid it.

Ruby has beautiful encapsulation. Yeah it could be defeated, but you'd really 
have to try. I want my language to protect me from my own mistakes, not from 
my own death wish.

Personally, I'd NEVER gratuitously add a method or instance var to a class at 
runtime. If I needed more methods than the class provided, I'd subclass it. I 
mean, how hard is it to subclass something, especially in Ruby. Adding 
methods and instance variables to classes in real time reminds me of senators 
who add a social security amendment to a defense bill -- it's just bad 
business that can lead to no good.

If someone can show me an advantage to adding methods and instance variables 
in real time, and that advantage can't be realized with normal OOP 
techniques, I'll keep an open mind. But unless it offers me a unique benefit 
that I need, I wouldn't do it.

It's easy to use Ruby in a manner that respects encapsulation and a known 
state, and if used that way, I'll leave my goggles at home :-)

SteveT

Steve Litt
http://www.troubleshooters.com
slitt@troubleshooters.com