From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2002-01-28T10:03:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Subrange of String subclass => invalid object


On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Dave Thomas wrote:
> I have to admit I've yet to invest time understanding all this
> Hollow... business. The underlying issue seems to be a lot simpler
> than all this:

The underlying code seems to be a lot simpler than the idea you have of
it. But in the end it doesn't matter how much time I spent on improving
the documentation because no-one reads the documentation.

> 2. Built-in classes such as String should be writable in Ruby. This
>    means they need internal helper objects for native storage, such as
>    the _String I suggested.

They don't need internal helper objects. I don't know where you got that
idea.

> These are not min-String objects: they are
> simply containers, accessed only by the fundamental methods in (1).

What are those min-String objects apart from being simply containers,
accessed only by the fundamental methods in (1) ? I'm confused.

> > You don't need delegation here.
> No you don't. It would just be clearer.

LOL. That's why Ruby has mixins, I guess!!!

> > > We could rewrite the whole String class in Ruby just to experiment
> > > with new behaviors.
> > Are we in january 2002, or january 2001 ?
> Have the needs changed?
> And are we any further along?

well, i've rewritten Array/Hash/String, i've experimented with new
behaviours, and i talked about it on ruby-talk. then months after that,
you say: we could rewrite the whole String class and experiment with new
behaviours.

Frankly, I don't know what to think.

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                   http://hostname.2y.net/~matju