From: Avdi Grimm <avdi@...>
Date: 2008-02-25T22:30:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Monkeypatching is Destroying Ruby

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 12:33 AM, Marc Heiler <shevegen@linuxmail.org> wrote:
>  Why is it dangerous?

One of the reasons concepts like modules and classes were introduced
to programming languages was to reduce accidental collisions.  Monkey
patching discards all of that.  In a sufficiently large project where
monkey patching isn't vigorously discouraged, unexpected and extremely
difficult to debug interactions are almost inevitable, because monkey
patches by different authors (or by the same author at different
times) interact or collide in unpredictable ways.

Where this becomes a community problem and not just a team problem is
when authors of gems and plugins start to see monkey patching as "the"
way to write extensions in Ruby. Thus making such unpredictable
interactions practically unavoidable if you want to re-use anyone
else's code.

-- 
Avdi