On Tue, 2003-12-16 at 12:06, Michael Lazzaro wrote: > My own first instinct would be that the run-time extensibility of a > particular interface/class would simply be a trait attached to that > class... by default, classes don't get it.
That doesn't sound very dynamic. At the post-OSCON design meetings, Larry suggested that the user of a class or library could say "I'm not going to muck about with this at runtime and any extra optimization would be nice, so go ahead and do whatever you can do it." Putting that opportunity on the user has several advantages: - the library writer isn't responsible for getting the library completely perfect, because library users can make changes if necessary - the common case (run-time extension and manipulation) needs less code (that is, you don't have to say "Mother, may I take advantage of the features of the dynamic language I'm supposed to be?" to take advantage of those features) - the user of the library can choose specific optimizations when and where he needs them -- c
