From: transfire@...
Date: 2006-07-19T02:58:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Preferred monkeypatching technique


James Britt wrote:
> Hal Fulton wrote:
> > dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I don't know whether it qualifies as "monkeypatching" (I always
> >> thought that meant doing something sloppy and ill-advised, which I
> >> hope I'm not :-) but see if this helps:
> >
> >
> > Actually it was only last week that I first saw this term
> > being used in the Ruby community. I wonder if it's too
> > late to squash it?
>
> Let's hope not.
>
> I believe it comes from the Python community. Python (I think) allows
> for something similar to Ruby's ability to modify any and all classes,
> but my (limited) understanding is that there are enough differences
> between the two that what is reasonable and proper in Ruby is not quite
> so elegant or appropriate in Python.  The term may be correct for
> Python, but in Ruby this is just a normal and correct way to use the
> language.
>
>
> The use of the term indicates unease with, and lack of understanding of,
> Ruby on the part of the speaker, rather than describing anything about Ruby.

I don't think it's quite that bad and tend to agree with _why. If
anything perhaps the original tokenizers used it to express an
uneasiness with actually doing it, but it the right hands and using the
right language (Ruby) "monkeypatching" can also be be good thing. In
other words, it's really just slang for something much more techincal
--essentially, AOP and Metaprogramming. Simliar to duck typing which is
more or less slang for Type Polymorphism.

T.