From: Tom Sawyer <transami@...>
Date: 2002-07-05T02:20:30+09:00
Subject: self_parent

i was wondering what others thought of the idea of having a built in
reference to the creation-parent for every object? much like the built
in self reference which points to the object, self_parent would point to
the object in which self was created. for example:

class S
  def initialize
    self_parent.hello
  end
end

class P
  def initialize
    @s = S.new 
  end
  def hello
    p "hello world" 
  end
end

p = P.new   -->   hello world

in my experience, i have encounter numerous places where i'd like access
to the parent object, in these cases i've had to pass the parent's self
to the child on instatiation. i.e. @s = S.new(self), and store that
within an instance variable of the child.

since it's only a reference, i would think there would be little
overhead to keeping this reference available automatically. in fact, i
imagine the information is already there, just without a way to get to
it. i think numerous programs could make use of such a feature.

what'ya think?
 
~transami

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
 temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
	                               -- Benjamin Franklin
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