From: "J. Ryan Sobol" <ryansobol@...>
Date: 2006-01-09T14:58:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Ideas on "Why Living Dangerous can be A Good Thing" in Ruby?

Indispensable uses of Ruby meta-programing.

1) Module.attr and friends are probably the simplest (and strongest)  
uses that highlight the advantages of meta-programming.

2) Rails' ActiveRecord.

3) Dwemthy's Creature class.  http://poignantguide.net/dwemthy/

When boiled down, Dwemthy's Creature class creates a domain-specific  
mini-language that is actual Ruby code.

I'm pretty sure someone else brought up domain-specific languages in  
this thread, but here are some links to learn more about them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain- 
specific_language#Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of_DSLs

DSL's are used everywhere: in Sendmail configuration files, Windows  
resource files, World of Warcraft UI scripting, etc.  One obvious  
advantage of embedded mini-languages, like sub-classes of Creature,  
over external ones, like configuration files, is the ability to apply  
Ruby's tools, like the irb, directly on the language.

~ ryan ~