From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2007-01-04T15:42:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Little Things


Rob Sanheim wrote:
> How is this better then having send and the __send alias, along with
> the corresponding bang methods?  It seems to me having one method that
> means "send a message", and then having one version be the "dangerous"
> version is much more obvious then having object_send and
> instance_send.

I just explained that. I'm sorry but I don't understand how is is not
clear. I guess all I can do is try to sum up on a bullet point basis:

1) you have 4 methods when only 2 are needed

2) and two of those methods are ugly shadow methods

3) #send is  common enough a word as to be too easily over-ridden

4) using #__send to circumvent this makes #send completely pointless

> If a ruby newbie tried "send" and saw it fail due to a private method,
> I bet once they saw "send!" in the docs or in irb they would
> immediately know how it works.  Its aligns perfectly with many other
> things in the std lib, and fits perfectly with POLS.

not really since 90+% of the time "!" means in place change. personally
i could care less about the !, to me that's not really the point --
there's a more fundamental issue here. To me POLS is

1) methods starting with 'object_' or 'instance_' are Vital methods and
should not be overridden (unless you know exactly what the heck it is
you're doing)

2) methods starting with 'instance_' provide Internal access to the
receiver.

> As for protecting from people overriding it, I think having the
> underscore forms is enough.  YSYEO ("You'll shoot your eye out.")  I'm
> sure there are programs were object_id and other meta-methods  are
> overridden.  All you can do is warn people against doing it, test your
> code, and of course choose libraries that behave well.

There was a reason #id was changed to #object_id.

T.