From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2003-05-20T03:45:45+09:00
Subject: Re: public/protected/private syntax

Hi,

In message "Re: public/protected/private syntax"
    on 03/05/20, Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> writes:

|> Once I decide, it would cost me a few minutes.  But we have to discuss
|> and get consensus about what "def" returns (is Symbol OK for you guys?).
|
|What would be the impact of having it return an unbound method? Is there 
|any way to optimize this so that it only generates the return object if 
|it knows that it is being used?

Since Ruby doesn't preserve UnboundMethod internally (it creates
method objects every time they're requested), the modification would
be far bigger.  Probably you have to wait until Rite.

|Don't they already return the value of the last statement executed? This 
|seems to be a Good Thing, as it is flexible. This way of doing things 
|obviously doesn't apply to 'def', which doesn't execute its body at 
|'compile' time.

Yep.  But when "def" returns UnboundMethod, I'm afraid many would
expect "class" to return Class objects.

							matz.