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Feature #6513

closed

Make method_missing to lookup in constants too

Added by egor.homakov (egor homakov) about 13 years ago. Updated over 12 years ago.

Status:
Rejected
Assignee:
-
Target version:
-
[ruby-core:45303]

Description

=begin
First letter of constant is always a capital letter(in Ruby).
if you define method:

def Hi
1
end

You're not able to use it w/o ():
Hi
it looks up for constant and raises error. only:
Hi() or send(:Hi)

None of code style guides teaches to use capital letters in methods' names. It's not convinient and bad practise.
At the same time we use constants(it's modules/classes too) a lot. To access constant we use '(({::}))'

The idea is to change the way how ruby looks up:
(1) if first letter is capital - looking for constant. if not found - moving directly to step 2
(2) looking for local variable and method as we do it now

This change will make syntax much more awesome & sexy:
ActiveSupport::Autoload -> ActiveSupport.Autoload
class Request < Rack::Request -> class Request < Rack.Request

Currently I can give you a hence using this monkey patch:
class Module
alias method_missing const_get
end
module A
module B
class C
end
end
end
#A.B.C instead of A::B::C - awesome?!

For me it is similar to changing hash syntax( => to sym: ''). I know, it is only 1 character less BUT it's 3 visible dots less too :)
Thank you for considering this proposal.
=end

Updated by egor.homakov (egor homakov) about 13 years ago

First letter of constant is always a capital letter(in Ruby).
if you define method:

def Hi
1
end

You're not able to use it w/o ():
Hi
it looks up for constant and raises error. only:
Hi() or send(:Hi)

None of code style guides teaches to use capital letters in methods' names. It's not convinient and bad practise.
At the same time we use constants(it's modules/classes too) a lot. To access constant we use '::'

The idea is to change the way how ruby looks up:

  1. if first letter is capital - looking for constant. if not found - moving directly to step 2
  2. looking for local variable and method as we do it now

This change will make syntax much more awesome & sexy:
ActiveSupport::Autoload -> ActiveSupport.Autoload
class Request < Rack::Request -> class Request < Rack.Request

Currently I can give you a hence using this monkey patch:
class Module
alias method_missing const_get
end
module A
module B
class C
end
end
end
#A.B.C instead of A::B::C - awesome?!

For me it is similar to changing hash syntax( => to sym: ''). I know, it is only 1 character less BUT it's 3 visible dots less too :)
Thank you for considering this proposal.

Updated by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) about 13 years ago

  • Description updated (diff)
  • Status changed from Open to Feedback

=begin
: egor.homakov (egor homakov) wrote:
None of code style guides teaches to use capital letters in methods' names. It's not convinient and bad practise.

Why do you think so?

#A.B.C instead of A::B::C - awesome?!

It doesn't look to me.
=end

Updated by egor.homakov (egor homakov) about 13 years ago

@nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)

Why do you think so?
any example of method in popular libraries or anything with first capital letter? Why to support what is not needed and messes lookup process?(example above)

It doesn't look to me.
Are you sure, why?
by 'awesome' I mean short and still meaningful. And it matters. '->' in PHP makes all php sources disgusting. There is no character better looking than '.' for connecting objects/methods IMO. At the same time it seems not hard to hook inside of lookup process and add looking up for constant. Even patch above works fine for me(but it's approx 20% slower than regular access A::B)

Updated by sorah (Sorah Fukumori) about 13 years ago

FYI, nokogiri.gem has Nokogiri::XML module and Nokogiri::XML method.

$ irb -rnokogiri

Nokogiri::XML.class
=> Module
Nokogiri::XML("").class
=> Nokogiri::XML::Document

Updated by matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) about 13 years ago

I am negative, since it gives more chance to confuse users, e.g.
mere constant definition can differentiate the meaning of the code.

Updated by egor.homakov (egor homakov) about 13 years ago

@sorah (Sorah Fukumori) it's probably the best possible example - I met it a while ago in nokogiri and was confused to see "def XML". dirty.Nokogiri.XML.new("").class - neat

@matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) every "new" thing confuses until user learns how it works now. I've been using dot syntax for a while and now :: looks very verbose to me. I aliased method_missing with const_get and happy with that but ... it's slower.

ok let's close it :'(

Updated by mame (Yusuke Endoh) over 12 years ago

  • Status changed from Feedback to Rejected
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