Re: Class structures

[Daniel Silverstone <dsilvers@...>]

Brennan Leathers wrote:
> Checked out the class subpage. One suggestion I have from a quick read
> is that I prefer
> ctr = Counter.New()    // well, really .new would be even better :)

I'm grateful for the comments.

What some people haven't noticed I think is that my system does *NOT* create 
globals with the classes in by default. I deliberately did that to prevent 
the possibility of polluting the namespace too much. However there is the 
Factory function which a lot of people have not noticed. Allowing constructs 
like this:

Class "foo" {
  func = function(self,i) print(self,i) end
}

foo = Factory "foo";

foo1 = foo()
foo2 = foo()

Which So I was figuring that in instances like counters people might do:

Class "Counter" { ... }
Counter = Factory "Counter"

However I guess that having a .new feature would be good, so I have added a 
.new() method to the "aranha.class" class.

So given an object 'foo' we can do:

foo2 = classof(foo).new();

Also, I have modified the Class() function so that if the class you specify 
is concrete already, instead of throwing an error it will return the class 
object for it; allowing constructs like:

Class "Counter" { ... }

Counter = Class "Counter";

ctr1 = Counter.new();

I'm still evolving the interface, so more comments would be appreciated. 
Remember though that I am trying to retain a quintessentially Lua feel to 
the class system. The way that I have chosen to implement it gives us all 
these funky ways of doing things (like getting hold of factory functions 
and/or class objects etc)

Thanks,

Daniel

--
Daniel Silverstone                         http://www.digital-scurf.org/
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