From: Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@...>
Date: 2006-12-15T01:12:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Random idea - private, blocks, constants

Hi,

In message "Re: Random idea - private, blocks, constants"
    on Thu, 14 Dec 2006 05:25:11 +0900, "Daniel Berger" <djberg96@gmail.com> writes:

|What do people think of the idea of private (and protected) taking a
|block?
|
|class Foo
|   private do
|      SOME_VALUE 88
|      def some_method
|          7
|      end
|   end
|end
|
|This wouldn't really be any different than the current behavior for
|methods, but it would (in theory) allow you to make constants, class
|variables and class instance variables private.
|
|My main reason for wanting this behavior is that, in some cases, I
|declare constant values that aren't meant for public use.

Hmm, first we have to define how private constants (and class
variables) behave.

Class variables are not supposed to be accessed outside of a class
body.  So they are always private, I guess.  We don't need special
treatment for them.  But how should private constants behave?  Maybe 
making them not accessible via :: operator is suffice.  I'm not sure
yet.

The next thing I need to think about is how we can implement them.
But it's another story.  As far as I can imagine now, it surely is
difficult, since currently there's no place to save visibility
information in the constants table.

							matz.