From: Dave Thomas <dave@...>
Date: 2003-05-20T03:02:41+09:00
Subject: Re: public/protected/private syntax

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In message "Re: public/protected/private syntax"
>     on 03/05/20, "Robert Klemme" <bob.news@gmx.net> writes:
> 
> |Ooops!  Should've checked.  I thougtht this was legal.  Darn...  Sorry for
> |the confusion.
> 
> This is once proposed by Shugo Maeda long ago, and suspended for
> various reason, mostly reluctance to make "def" return symbols.

Now that you can nest method definitions, perhaps it makes sense to 
revisit this: if method definitions are now more like normal statements, 
it would seem to make sense to have them return something. In an ideal 
world it would return an UnboundMethod object, but a Symbol would be 
cheaper in terms of runtime overhead.

But I very much like the idea of doing this: there are many times I'd 
like to decorate a method definition, for example:

    memoize def meth(a, b) ...

    end


    soap(Integer, String, def meth(aNumber, aString)
    end)

etc...

So, any chance you might reconsider???  :)

Cheers


Dave