Re: Name resolution in Ruby

> "Alan Stern" <[e-mail]> wrote in,
> ...
> > This is currently under discussion in a separate thread.  I think a
> > consensus is growing that class variables really ought to behave more
> > like instance variables of the class itself, with appropriate accessor
> > methods.

Here here.  After reading about Self
http://research.sun.com/self/language.html a while back I am in full
agreement.  No classes at all.  The interesting thing about Self is that
it could easily simulate any class-based OO lang (multiple or single
inheritence, or some other type of mixin facility) without much of a
MOP, and requires no special semantics to practice Subject-Oriented
programming other than an understanding of what it is.  Of course the
only current Self implementation has a smalltalk-style workspace, and a
smalltalk-like syntax (along with no conditionals).  Is it just me or do
other people feel like they are being strangled when trying to learn
(when most code is trivial) through this?  Makes me wonder if the
Smalltalk crowd wouldn't be just a little bit larger today if they had
included something like irb (which set the learning process to
warp-speed for me) in the various standards.  Their shells are just too
workspace-oriented; it's hard when you're first learning the language to
have learn a Graphics API to get a console when all you were hoping to
start with was say iterating over a collection; and every time you want
to do something requires you to reach for the mouse or twist your left
hand awkwardly for a key combination.  END_RANT

A language which is to Self what Ruby is Smalltalk, that's something I'd
like to see.

Matz, you want to volunteer? :)

--
Alexander Schofield