From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2002-01-24T03:18:50+09:00
Subject: Re: OOP UI Design


From: "Chris Gehlker" <gehlker@fastq.com>
>
> On 1/23/02 8:05 AM, "James Britt (rubydev)" <james@rubyxml.com> wrote:
> 
> > But they *are* evil!  Anyway, such phrasing helps provoke people into
> > reconsidering what may be unchallenged assumptions.
> 
> I'm actually starting to question that. (And I hate myself for it). When I
> encountered ObjC's key-value coding, I was sure it was evil and I preached
> jeremiads on the eminent destruction of the language and all its works.
> Funny though, the gods have withheld their wrath. I not only use programs
> that rely on this abomination, it has started to creep into my own code.
> 
> I feel the same way about ruby's attr_accessor and its demon siblings.

Why?  In Ruby these aren't relegated to being simple getters &
setters - they're compatible with the Uniform Access principle
("All services offered by a module should be available through
a uniform notation, which does not betray whether they are
implemented through storage or through computation.", see
http://www.elj.com/elj/v1/n1/bm/urp/ )

That is, Ruby lets us start out with an attr_accessor for
:num_monkeys in class Barrel, just getting and setting a 
stored value; but if computation should become necessary to
the task, Ruby lets us define Barrel#num_monkeys and
Barrel#num_monkeys= as methods more complex than those auto-
generated by attr_accessor. . .

. . . Does this address any of your concerns, or am I, like,
totally missing the point?  =)


Regards,

Bill