From: Mike Austin <mike@...>
Date: 2010-04-15T12:45:12+09:00
Subject: Safer monkey-patching?

Sometimes (or often, depending on your use) it is useful to add or override 
methods to an already existing class, aka monkey-patching.  Would it be useful 
to subclass an existing object, while still using the same class-name - in 
essence, creating an extended local version of the class:

String = Class.new(String) do
   def size()
     return -1
   end
end

string = String.new << "foo"
puts string.size

I realize this is re-assigning a constant, but it's more for demonstration 
purposes.  Now anything within lexical scope will use the new class, while 
other methods will use the original.

Mike