On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 03:10:30PM -0800, Paul Hodges wrote:
: Ok, wait a sec. Does that mean different references to the same critter
: can have differing sets of aspects?
:
: my Dog $Spot;
: my $doggie = Dog.new();
: my $meandog = \$doggie.as(AttackDog);
: my $nicedog = \$doggie.as(LapDog);
: if $me.away {
: if $visitor.nephew {
: $Spot = $nicedog;
: } else {
: $Spot = $meandog;
: }
: }
:
: Now, if I'm away and someone show up, I presume that if it's my nephew
: then $Spot.seeVisitor() will invoke the LapDog role's .wag() method,
: but otherwise I expect it to invoke the AttackDog role's .Bark()
: method. I realize there are other ways to get here.... but would this
: *work*???
We might be able to make it work, though as you say, there are other
ways to get there, and the chances are that at least one of them will
be a better way. Certainly when the Dog object's class is composed, it
will have to do something about the conflicting .seeVisitor methods
in the two roles. It might well be better to encode that choice as
part of the dog's state rather than in the references to it. On the
other hand, it might just fall out of our implementation that it does
the right thing with typed references, if the method dispatch to
the conflicting methods in the Dog class can have access to the reference
types to break ties.
: And btw, just a refresher on this "assigning a ref" thing -- would the
: syntax have to change at *all*?
Dunno. I don't see anything obviously wrong with it, but then I never
could see very well...
Larry
