Hi, Chris!

Also las ich bei Chris Moline [mailto:ugly-daemon / home.com]
> 
> [...]
> 
> May I ask what metaclasses are?? Are they classes for 
> instatiating classes??
> 

So to say, indeed.  In a way, in Ruby every class needs two parents
to be born:

      <> The regular class it inherits from (Object, if there's no
         other superclass given)         and
      <> its metaclass.  Here all is found that applies to all children
         of this magna mater: class-wide variables, class methods etc.

Same is true in Smalltalk, by the way, and I think, in every interpreted
OO language. (C++ and Java are compiled -- that's why they need static
things to provide something like the same features as the metaclass.)


HTWH,

--

Hippo (aka Matthias Lampert, Hamburg)
Just another XP and Ruby fan