From: Chad Fowler <chad@...>
Date: 2003-12-17T23:53:33+09:00
Subject: Re: UnboundMethods Useless?

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, T. Onoma wrote:

# On Wednesday 17 December 2003 03:06 pm, David A. Black wrote:
# > 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
# 
# It is not meaningless. It is not arbitrary. Programmer's do not just blow 
# their nose and snotty code comes out. Your extreme over simplification has no 
# bearing.


Let's see a real example, then.  I must be simple, but every case I can 
think of is probably something you would call an extreme over 
simplification.  


# 
# > 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.
# 
# No, that is not being said. What is being said: if the shoe fits, wear it. 
# Hmm... sounds like a bad work I know: *uck ;)
# 
# It all about the Dynamics, baby! Let the Static go.
# 

I think you're preaching to the choir here, though I'm not really sure I 
understand what you're trying to say with all of these colorful 
colloquialisms.