Dave Thomas wrote:

> Eric Jacoboni <jacoboni / univ-tlse2.fr> writes:
> 
>> So my use of 'private', above, don't have the semantic i used to
>> consider, as anyone is able to call a private method simply by creating
>> a subclass.

> In a language where the source code is always available at runtime,
> this seems reasonable. If someone wants to ignore a big hint saying
> "don't do this", then they'll always be able to., and they'll reap
> whatever trouble they deserve :)

Yes, of course... We can't avoid someone to alter the code and remove 
'private' in it.  But, in this cas, this hacker could not complains about 
future class versions that break its code.  My notion of 'private' is not 
aimed at code privacy. When a class developer chooses to make something 
private, i think he has good reasons to do so. The fact that this privacy 
may be misused (unintentionnaly) in Ruby may lead to some strange things 
if, tomorrow, the developper chooses to remove this private method.

-- 
Éòic Jacoboni