From: Peter <Peter.Vanbroekhoven@...>
Date: 2003-12-17T23:28:37+09:00
Subject: Re: UnboundMethods Useless?

> I don't know what you mean by (ir)reversible, but the point is that
> it's meaningless to talk about arbitrary objects being able to do
> arbitrary things.  For example (and Guy has already given some),
> String#strip removes whitespace.  What would it mean to remove
> whitespace from a Hash or a Fixnum or a MyThing?  And more to the
> point, what would happen if
>
> I don't mean: "Could such objects have some method called 'strip'
> which made sense for them?" because that's not what you're suggesting.
> What you're suggesting is that String#strip, Array#join, Thread#join,
> IO#readlines, Regexp.escape, MyThing#some_method, and every other
> method written for any purpose in Ruby should, without change or
> adaptation, work for any Ruby object.

By the same reasoning, Ruby is suggesting that any module makes sense in
any class/object, because you can include a module in any class you'd
like. With freedom comes the possibility of doing something wrong, but
that doesn't make freedom wrong, now does it?

Peter