From: Niklas Frykholm <r2d2@...>
Date: 2001-08-12T16:28:06+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:19581] Re: order and freedom in Ruby (was: Re:  Re: the wayclass variables work)

On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 08:03:58AM +0900, Chris Uzdavinis wrote:
> I still have this uneasy feeling, though, that nothing can ever be
> completely trusted, because perfectly working code can easily be
> broken by other code in another file which is completely unrelated to it.  
> [...] 
> So when someone modifies the behavior of Array class such that []
> becomes 1-based, for example, he breaks MY working code, which hasn't
> changed. 

In a large project you need coding standards for what people can and cannot
do. This applies to static languages as well. For example, in C++, you
can redefine the global new operator and break all sorts of things. You
could also #define malloc in a header file to do soemthing completely 
different.

So just as you have a C coding standard saying "please do not redefine
the standard library or do other stupid tricks" you would have a Ruby 
coding standard that said about the same thing.

The only real difference is perhaps that modifications of this kind are
easier to do in Ruby, but on the other hand most things are easier to do
in Ruby :)

// Niklas