From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-08-15T23:51:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Thought question: Where does "new" come from?


From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@hypermetrics.com>


> I've been brooding again on the circularities
> in Ruby's classes.
>
> Now I'm thinking of a particular question:
> How would you explain where "new" comes from
> in a class?
>
> It's easy to say that all classes are objects
> of the type Class.
>
> So for example, Object has a "new" because it's
> a Class. But on the other hand, Class is an
> Object.
>
> Would you say that Object gets "new" from Class,
> or vice versa? Or neither? Or should I just not
> worry about it?

That's pretty easy.

"ARGV is an instance of Array, so I can call reverse on it."
"Object is an instance of Class, so I can call new on it."

> This arose because I was trying to draw a picture
> of Ruby's entire object model.
>
> Comments, anyone? Matz, Dave, Guy, David? Others?
>
> It's 1:35 a.m. my time. I should go to bed. I've
> probably said something incorrect in this email.

The main circularity in Ruby is as follows: it's really easy to use and saves
you haves of time, but then you waste time playing with it.

>
> Hal
>

Gavin