On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 05:03:10AM +0900, David A. Black wrote:

> Maybe we're in too deep for it to change, though.

Don't forget  that ri uses ::  for class methods.   While I personally
hate  the ::  and  never  use it  in  my code,  my  fingers are  still
programmed to use it when referring to ri.  If ri starts rejecting the
::  then I'll  probably waste  time  thinking a  method doesn't  exist
because ri spat it out, when  in fact ri just rejected the syntax.

Of course,  ri could continue to accept  the ::, but then  Ruby and ri
would no longer agree about correct  syntax, which sows the seed for a
different kind of confusion.  Are you happy looking forward to a flood
of "ri says Foo::bar exists but Ruby says FAIL!!!" bug reports?

Much as I'd *love* to  rewind time and make this change retroactively,
I'm pessimistic  about the chances  of doing it  now without a  lot of
grief.

Regards, 

Jeremy Henty