As a comparison, the "Design Patterns in Ruby" by Russ Olsen (where MP is one of the Ruby design patterns, in addition to the standard GoF patterns) never suggests reopening classes as a solution to any problem in the book, as far as I remember. When needed, methods are added on a per-object level. And David Black seem to say about the same thing as the OPs blog, look at page 28 in this presentation: http://www.chariotsolutions.com/slides/pdfs/rubyeast2007-black-PerObjectBehavior.pdf Best regards, Jari Williamsson