From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2006-06-04T05:26:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Another Look at SELECTOR NAMESPACES

On 6/3/06, transfire@gmail.com <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
> Austin Ziegler wrote:
>> Fortunately, the choice isn't yours.
> Wwhy do you have to go and do that? Does making a little digg like
> that support your argument?

It's not a dig. It's a statement of fact: the choice *isn't* yours. It
isn't mine, either. However, you presented this as an either-or
proposition, which this most certainly is not. I have serious doubts
about the utility of selector namespaces (just as I have serious doubts
about the utility of namespace "renaming" as some people seem to be
asking for recently because of bad naming decisions by yet other
developers). I think that the whole desire for a feature like
"require_wrap" is foolish.

That said, I see some value, given Ruby's open classes, in having the
ability to have multiple methods named the same thing but with a
distinguishing namespace. I think that there's too many unanswered
questions to wholeheartedly support them, but they may prove useful.
(For example, when is one defining a method in a namespace vs.
overriding a method?)

What I am absolutely certain about is that dynamic resolution of
selector namespaces is a disaster waiting to happen. I would almost
rather see Ruby adopt static typing than see dynamic resolution of
selector namespaces and/or the modification of literal resolution based
on such dynamic resolution. Because when you do *that*, you can no
longer trust even the most basic syntactical rules of Ruby and what you
have is less Ruby than Ruby with static typing would be.

I *will* admit that I view most of the suggestions that you, personally,
make with a great deal more suspicion because I think that you ask for
things that are ten times more "clever" than they would ever be useful.
Most of the things that you've proposed that I have opposed fall into
the category of YAGNI, too. (I also take issue with some of your
syntactical direction, which I think reduces readability and
understandability of code.)

> I just don't see your point when what you say is *unnecessry arcana*
> can already be done --indeed is already being done. There just happens
> to be odd exceptions, due to the lack of a more managed approach. For
> example, not unlike the one I already gave.
>
> --- foolib.rb ---
>
>   class X
>     class String
>       def self.new ; 0 ; end
>     end
>   end
>
> --- bar.rb ---
>
>   require 'foolib'
>
>   class X
>     def mystring
>       String.new( "Extended!" )
>     end
>   end
>
>   x = X.new
>   x.mystring  #=> 0

(1) That's not selector namespaces as I understand it.
(2) The fact that "String.new" is being used is an indication that
    something is different.
(3) There's no way that the alteration of basic syntactical rules could
    *possibly* be easier to understand.

Far better to work *with* other people than around them, if at all
possible.

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