[Ruby] copying methods around

[John Whitley]

Ryan Davis wrote:
> aka factory method

and my brain was off in other lands anyways, as I mistook  
manipulating the instance's methods with manipulating the class'  
methods...

to Aaron's point, the lightbulb is on now: prototype-ish JS emulation  
in Ruby.  There's another approach to consider (thinking/typing  
quickly, apologies if I gaff it again.. >.< ).  Ruby doesn't really  
have a first-class concept of method-as-object, which is the rub.   
However, you can get something similar with one-off modules used as  
containers for the "free" functions.

Consider:
--------- cut here ---------
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w

require 'ostruct'

module MyMod
   def foo
     puts "I'm in #{self.class}"
   end
end

class << os; include MyMod; end

os.foo

os2 = OpenStruct.new

os2.foo
--------- cut here ---------

If needed as free functions, you can include these into the toplevel  
namespace... but you may be better off creating a containing module  
to encapsulate all of this crud lest it clutter up the Ruby universe  
too much.  (I hear that cartoon foxes get cranky over too much  
clutter...)

Unfortunately (fortunately? ;-) my knowledge of JS object model  
semantics is kinda sketchy, so I'm not sure how good a mapping the  
above will provide.

Anyhow, have fun at hack night...  back to a wee bit of deadlining  
for me... (tease: rails from exerb!)

-- John