From: Paul Battley <pbattley@...>
Date: 2006-08-18T19:47:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Syntax checker wtf?

On 18/08/06, Just Another Victim of the Ambient Morality
<ihatespam@rogers.com> wrote:
>     Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with protecting code
> from human error considering how it's written for humans.  Ruby still has
> access permissions.  If Ruby really trusted the programmer, it wouldn't
> bother with public and private methods.  If you're not supposed to call
> that method, then don't call it!  It's that simple.  That's what Python
> does...

Ruby does trust the programmer. The privacy screen is very flimsy:

class Foo
private
  def dont_call_me
    puts("I said DON'T CALL ME!")
  end
end

f = Foo.new
f.dont_call_me
# NoMethodError: private method `dont_call_me' called for #<Foo:0x34293c>

f.__send__(:dont_call_me)
# I said DON'T CALL ME!

Paul.