From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2007-06-12T00:26:26+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby/smalltalk: method_missing/doesNotUnderstand

On 6/10/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all - this is for the Smalltalkers and the people interested in
> Ruby's genealogy, as it were. Is it fair for me to tell people that
> method_missing is a Ruby translation of Smalltalk's doesNotUnderstand?
> Or is it more a totally unique feature? I was going to say the first,
> but now I think it's the latter. I don't think you can rewrite
> doesNotUnderstand the way you can rewrite method_missing - or,
> actually, I think you **can**, but I think in practice it happens much
> less. Anyway, help me out if you know the answer to this one.

Actually overriding doeNotUnderstand: in Smalltalk is rather common
for much the same reasons it's used in Ruby.

For example, when I wrote the Smalltalk distributed feature for IBM
Smalltalk about 10 years ago, doesNotUnderstand was a key underpinning
of the implementation.

As to where Matz got the idea you'd have to ask him, but it's very
much the same mechanism.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/