From: Sean O'Halpin <sean.ohalpin@...>
Date: 2006-07-08T19:08:12+09:00
Subject: Re: About 1.9 #__method__ feature.

On 7/8/06, Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Jul 7, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Sean O'Halpin wrote:
>
> > On 7/7/06, dblack@wobblini.net <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:
> >> Hi --
> >>
> >> On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:
> >>
> >> > On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, Logan Capaldo wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Steal another name from lisp?
> >> >>
> >> >> obj.apply(:meth, 1, 2, 3)
> >> >>
> >> >> It's not send, but it's not funcall either.
> >> >>
> >> >> obj apply your :meth function to the arguments 1,2,3
> >> >>
> >> >> Just throwing stuff out there, feel free to ignore me :)
> >> >
> >> > i was just about to suggest that name.  still, there is nothing
> >> which implies
> >> > are receiverless context sensitive call that can access private
> >> methods with
> >> > that name is there?
> >>
> >> No -- which is why I like it much more than 'funcall' and
> >> such :-)  It
> >> doesn't introduce the criterion of "receiverlessness" into a
> >> situation
> >> where the concept of having or not having a receiver isn't relevant.
> >>
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >
> > FWIW, I'm already using apply, i.e.:
> >
> > module Enumerable
> >  def apply(&block)
> >    map {|i| i.instance_eval(&block) }
> >  end
> > end
> >
> > which seems more in keeping with its meaning in lisp (though not
> > really the same).
> >
> > Regards,
> > Sean
> >
>
> I disagree, yours is not especially closer to the Lisp meaning of
> apply. The only difference (AFAIK) between Lisp's funcall and Lisp's
> apply is how the argument list is expressed:
>
> [1]> (funcall #'+ 1 2)
> 3
> [2]> (apply #'+ '(1 2))
> 3
>
>
>
> Of course this probably means we should have #funcall and #apply <g>
>
> obj.funcall(:meth, 1, 2)
> obj.apply(:meth, [1, 2])
>

Don't forget lisp is receiverless ;) AFAIK apply is usually used to
apply a lambda with arguments to a list. So I think of apply as being
more like:

module Enumerable
  def apply(*args, &block)
    map{|x| x.instance_exec(*args, &block)}
  end
end

But that's only my interpretation.

Regards,
Sean