From: Yossef Mendelssohn <ymendel@...>
Date: 2008-05-02T05:20:45+09:00
Subject: Re: inherited behaviour.

On May 1, 11:32 am, Joel VanderWerf <vj...@path.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Peter Morris wrote:
> > Folks, would there be any DOWNSIDE to the call to the parents INHERITED
> > method being deferred from the start to the end of the definition of the
> > subclass?
>
> > At the moment if you...
>
> > class A
> >  def self.inherited klass
> >  end
> > end
>
> > class B < A # this is point (1)
> >  def self.some_method
> >  end
> > end # this is point (2)
>
> > at point (1), the inherited call on A happens.
> > Now, what I want to know is.... would there be a problem if this was
> > deferred to point(2)
>
> Ruby classes are never closed, so there is no significant point (2),
> just an arbitrary snapshot in the continuing definition of class B.

There's only one inheritance point for a class, though. That the class
isn't closed doesn't even enter into it. It's not like you can change
the inheritance later on. Consider the following:

   class B < A
     # some stuff
   end

   class B < A  # reopening with explicit parent, fine
     # more stuff
   end

   class B  # reopening without parent, fine
     # more stuff
   end

   class B < C  # reopening with explicit parent, no good since the
parent is different
     # more stuff
   end

In this case, the "significant point (2)" would be the first 'end' in
this example, the one immediately following the "some stuff" comment.

> --
>        vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

--
-yossef