Joe Knapka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > John J. Lee wrote: > > > The fact that "open classes" are apparently thought to be a good thing > > in Ruby puzzles (and worries) me. > > This objection strikes me as having the same > nature as, "Python's lack of strong protection for > class members puzzles (and worries) me".
No, it doesn't. I didn't express myself clearly enough. > The Pythonic > answer to that objection is usually that this is a > feature: it lets people who know what they're doing > solve problems more easily than if they had to work > around a bunch of "helpful" protection. Yes. Simplifying a bit: It is not considered a good thing to take advantage of that. Rather, it is considered a good thing *to be able* to take advantage of it. In stark contrast, I'm told that some Ruby users claim that open classes are a good thing for everyday cases, rather than as a last resort with serious costs. Even for builtin types!! I don't know if that's true, it's just what I've heard. Hmm, googled a bit and found this: http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=120400 That single datapoint seems to support what I've heard! > Classes are effectively open in Python, too, at least [...] Quite. John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
