J.Herre <jlst / gettysgroup.com> writes:

> On Friday, February 7, 2003, at 08:05 AM, dblack / candle.superlink.net
> wrote:
>
>>   class SpecializedString < String
>>     def to_i(s)
>>       # specialized overriding of to_i
>>     end
>>   end
>>
>>   s = SpecializedString.new("12345")
>>   m = /(\d\d)/.match(s)
>>   n = m[1].to_i
>>   p n * 10
>
> This regexp change is actually very cool.  I've got some ugly code
> that I can fix up as a result of this change.
>
> FWIW I think your example argues more strongly for adding
> multi-dispatch to ruby (or maybe just adopting a policy of not
> changing the semantics of well-known methods in subclasses) than for
> backing out this change.

At the risk of a "me too" post, I have the same thoughts.  Code should
be able to do tests for object.kind_of?(String) and expect the methods
of String to be present with similar semantics.


-- 
matt