From: "Matthias Wächter" <matthias@...>
Date: 2007-09-04T04:23:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby stupidities

dblack@wobblini.net schrieb:
>> But certainly this may break existing libs, so be careful.
> 
> The problem is, you can't be careful. You can only decide that it's OK
> for code to break, and keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't.

Sure. Whenever you extend a basic class you take the risk of breaking something. Choosing a name for a function or an alias when you extend a function is nontrivial if you want to take into account that the name can already be used.

> I don't mean to split hairs -- of course "careful" can mean lots of
> things. It's just that I think it's important to remember that the
> code doesn't "know" that the person who changed it is worried :-)

:)

> It's
> just going to do what it does. So unless you're willing to read
> through the entire source code base, for Ruby and all add-on
> libraries, every time you make such a change, you're pretty much
> accepting some very real risk.

I think that is what everyone who writes libraries has to do for 1.9/2.0 anyway.

- Matthias