From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2009-01-03T04:32:59+09:00
Subject: Re: What does 'Monkey Patching' exactly Mean in Ruby?

Hi --

On Sat, 3 Jan 2009, Tom Link wrote:

>> If you're really finding it necessary to create a whole class and a
>> method_missing apparatus to make gsub! chainable
>
> This referred to the example of str += "foo". I was simply elaborating
> on my alternative proposal.
>
>> Part of the point of the #extend
>> technique is that it requires pin-pointing what you actually need
>
> You'd have to make sure you are the only user of that object then,
> wouldn't you? You couldn't really make such objects publicly
> accessible? Could be fun to debug code that returns such objects from
> a method.

Right; I'm advocating being quite conservative about changing core
behaviors, and #extend is a relatively, but not absolutely,
conservative way. I like #extend in general -- not just to avoid
making global changes but also just because it's such a powerful way
to design an object. It often feels tighter to me than creating a new
class.


David

-- 
David A. Black / Ruby Power and Light, LLC
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