From: Ron Jeffries <ronjeffries@...>
Date: 2002-01-12T04:44:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Dir.entries have no home

Thanks David and Massimilano for your interesting and helpful replies.
Looks like I should get 1.7. Is it pretty stable as such things go?

Where I was really going, though, was to a different issue.

I'm suggesting that the objects involved in the Dir.entries, FileTest,
and File families aren't quite right. Think of it this way:

When I do Dir.entries, I expect objects back that represent, you
guessed it, entries in the directory. But in fact I get strings, and
they don't represent much of anything other than the names of the
files in the directory and they aren't even the full names of those.

I'd like to be able to ask questions of directory entries, like are
you a directory, what is your last-written date, and so on.

I can't ask those strings those questions, so I am invited to
useFileTest, a module (indistinguishable from a class in this sense)
and send messages to FileTest, passing in the strings, which are not
even the strings that I got from Dir.entries, but instead strings with
a bunch of concatentation of directory names and slashes and whatnot.

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I have the impression that
in the Ruby/Python/Perl universe we are used to dealing with system
level things not as objects encapsulating information and supporting
methods for doing things, but as strings.

I'm wondering if there is, or should be, a movement to bring Ruby more
in lines with the principles of objects.

Or am I just wasting my time worrying about this?

Thanks,

Ronald E Jeffries
http://www.XProgramming.com
http://www.objectmentor.com
I'm giving the best advice I have. You get to decide whether it's true for you.