From: Thiago Arrais <thiago.arrais@...>
Date: 2006-04-02T13:15:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Dynamic code generation

On 4/1/06, Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don;t see what you  gain by meta-programming here

I need a method to identify the child classes, something like
Class#name, just more detailed. All instances of subclasses of the
parent class need to respond to that method, but the method returns
the same thing for all instances: a class identifier. Most classes
will respond in mostly the same way, but some will need customization.

Maybe a (almost) real example will help:

----
class Parent

    def identifier
        return "This is class #{self.class.name}"
    end

end

class ChildUsingDefaultIdentifier; end

class ChildUsingCustomIdentifier

    def identifier
        return 'Instances of this class identify them on a totally
different way'
    end

end
----

Sure we could just override the method in the subclasses that needed
to override it (like we did above), but it is just an identifier and a
whole def block seemed too much.

Regards,

Thiago Arrais