From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2006-06-03T22:25:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Another Look at SELECTOR NAMESPACES

On 6/3/06, transfire@gmail.com <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
> Alex Young wrote:
> Notice that when you create a string via String.new you get the
> exlamation marks. If you use the literal constructor you do not. That's
> because Ruby does not search for the String class relative to context
> when instantiating literls. If it did, this could be a basis for
> SELECTOR NAMESPACES.

...all of which sounds *way* too magic to me. The more I look at
selector namespaces, the less that I like them because they're way too
magic. Sort of like the decision made in C++ to allow overloading of
compound assignment operators (+=, -=, etc.) so that c = c + b could
mean something entirely different than c += b.

I would feel very uncomfortable if basic language structures changed
on me randomly.

Inasmuch as selector namespaces are limited to allowing multiple
methods with the same name but different "namespaces", I'll support
them even though I can't really see much value in them. Beyond that
... and I think we're looking at something that is far more confusing
and abusable than any possible value it could provide.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca