From: Eric Mahurin <eric.mahurin@...>
Date: 2008-02-25T02:13:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Monkeypatching is Destroying Ruby

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On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 4:46 AM, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Avdi Grimm <avdi@avdi.org> wrote:
> >  http://avdi.org/devblog/?p=18
>
> Lots of people seem to confuse Runtime class modification
> (metaprogramming) with MP.
> There are very important issues to be discussed about if MP is on core
> classes or commonly used packages
> and most importantly if you MP in a package or in an application.
>
> I have the feeling that you were making *very valid* points but they
> do not concern MP in at least 50% of their use cases.
> (or maybe those I use).
>

This blog is really only an attack on the popularity of "monkey patching"
(the python definition - patching existing classes/methods), not all of
meta-programming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_patch

If done with care the other aspects of meta-programming don't prevent
portable/reusable/inter-operable code:

* modifying methods of a specific object (unless it is a "global") at
run-time.
* evaling a piece of dynamically generated code.
* defining classes on the fly (class factory)
* introspection
* etc.

In my opinion, people should think about monkey-patching like they do global
variables.  Monkey-patching should be discouraged like global variables are.

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