From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2008-09-07T21:48:30+09:00
Subject: #to_self

Say I have a mixin:

  module Grumpy
    def grumpize
      to_s.upcase + '!!!!!!!!!'
    end
  end

  class String
    include Grumpy
  end

  "fun".grumpize  #=> "FUN!!!!!!!!!"

Now,

  class Symbol
    include Grumpy
  end

  :fun.grumpize  #=> "FUN!!!!!!!!!"

But, hey, I want a Grumpy Symbol here, not a String!

I don't want to have to make a mixin exception for Symbol. So what's a
general solution?

My considerations of this led to:

  class String
    alias_method :to_self, :to_s
  end

  class Symbol
    alias_method :to_self, :to_sym
  end

  module Grumpy
    def grumpize
      (to_s.upcase + '!!!!!!!!!').to_self
    end
  end

That does the trick. And more besides, #to_self seems interesting in
and of itself.  Would #to_self be generally useful throughout Ruby's
Object models? What else could be done with it, I wonder?

T.