From: John Feminella <johnf@...>
Date: 2011-07-18T23:51:39+09:00
Subject: Re: What is BasicObject (really)?

1.) Which results seem inconsistent to you?

2.) What code did you write to produce those results?

~ jf
--
John Feminella
Principal Consultant, BitsBuilder
LI: http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnxf
SO: http://stackoverflow.com/users/75170/



On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 10:46, Jim Maher <jdmaher@jdmaher.com> wrote:
> In a recent thread titled "Unexpected results from private_methods", I
> questioned the methods available for a BasicObject.  That led to an
> interesting comment about BasicObject's place in the object model.
>
> The comment (paraphrased) was:
>
>>  BasicObject is a class, an instance of Class.
>>  Class inherits from Object.
>>
>>  Almost everything in ruby is an object--including
>>  classes.  All objects inherit from Object.
>>
>>  Things are very "circular" at the top of the ruby object model.
>>  BasicObject is an object, it inherits from Object.  Object,
>>  in turn, inherits from BasicObject, which means
>>  BasicObject inherits from itself!
>
> I get the conceptual drift, but I wonder about the practical
> implications.  So I ran a bit of code to try to understand better, and
> just confused myself more.  Specifically, I ran code to determine
> BasicObject's class, superclass and ancestors, and whether BasicObject
> is an instance or kind of BasicObject, Object and/or Class.
>
> The results SEEM inconsistent to me (probably because of my limited
> understanding).
>
>  BasicObject's class is Class
>  BasicObject's superclass is
>  BasicObject's ancestors are [BasicObject]
>  BasicObject kind of BasicObject? true
>  BasicObject instance of BasicObject? false
>  BasicObject kind of Object? true
>  BasicObject instance of Object? false
>  BasicObject kind of Class? true
>  BasicObject instance of Class? true
>
> Do these results seem inconsistent to anyone else?
>
>
> j
>
> James D. Maher
> jdmaher@jdmaher.com
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>
>