From: "Skye Shaw!@#$" <skye.shaw@...>
Date: 2007-08-02T11:45:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Private methods not so private?

On Aug 1, 5:42 pm, Daniel Berger <djber...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 1, 4:06 pm, Alex Young <a...@blackkettle.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Frank Meyer wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > I'm using Ruby 1.8.2 and I'm reading the book "Programming Ruby 2nd
> > > edition". In this book they say, that Ruby implements private methods by
> > > not allowing another receiver than "self". After reading this, I tried
> > > the following:
>
> > > class Test
> > >  private
> > >  def print_hello
> > >   puts "Hello everyone!"
> > >  end
> > > end
>
> > > t = Test.new
> > > t.send( "print_hello" )
>
> > > This program runs just fine and prints "Hello everyone!".
>
> > > Is this behaviour to be expected?
>
> > Yes - send trumps private.  Private in Ruby is more of a guideline than
> > a rule.
>
> It's a guideline in any language.
>
> I think people tend to think of 'private' as some sort of security
> enforcement. It's not.

It is in C++ and Java, maybe even VB, if I recall... (I try not to
recall VB).
Well, maybe not a "security enforcement" but a visibility and/or
invocation restriction.

My JVM even gives me an IllegalAccessException when I try to access an
private Method at runtime via reflection.