For the devil’s advocate position Ivan was arguing for, you could argue that 
IronRuby should only allow *adding* new members to CLR types, not to edit or 
delete existing CLR members. The added members would be visible only from Ruby. 
From C#, you will get compiler errors anyway if you try to call these added 
members (unless you use “dynamic” in C# 4.0), and so having two different views 
of the CLR type is OK here since there is no scope for confusion.

This would be somewhat similar to the way C# extension methods work – the real 
methods of the type get precedence, and extension methods (comparable to 
monkey-patched Ruby methods) get lower precedence during overload resolution.

Building a special mocking framework for IronRuby does not change the basic 
fact that CLR types are unmodifiable. A special framework will work only if the 
app is all IronRuby code, but it will break when C# is thrown in the mix.

The current plan is to allow monkey-patching of CLR members on CLR types. It 
does give power but has some unpredictability as well. Feedback and real-world 
experience is welcome about whether this is the right thing or not.

From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jimmy Schementi
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] more interop questions

I want to re-emphasize and expand a bit on what Tomas said: monkey-patching 
.NET will only be visible from Ruby. You could look at this as a feature of 
IronRuby as it will never break .NET code. In reality, it’s a limitation of the 
CLR which does not allow modification of types once they are created.

Ivan, this is exactly why a special mocking framework needs to be built for 
IronRuby =)

To make this a bit more concrete, here’s a simple example:

class Foo {
  public int Bar() {
    return 42;
  }
  public void SayBar() {
    System.Console.WriteLine(Bar());
  }
}

The SayBar() method is compiled to call the method Bar(). When this Ruby code 
is executed:

class Foo
  def Bar
    “Monkey patched!”
  end
end

The .NET “Foo” class is not changed, but a new type is created and the Ruby 
method resolution knows to check this Ruby class first, then the “Foo” .NET 
type (I’m drastically overly-simplifying the way method lookup works, but for 
this example it’ll do =P). So when Bar() is called from Ruby it will give you 
the Ruby method:

>>> Foo.new.Bar
=> “Monkey Patched!”

But the SayBar() method will always call the static version of Bar(), because 
monkey-patching has no effect on the .NET view of the world.

>>> Foo.new.SayBar
42
=> nil

The only way to truly modify the “.NET-view” from Ruby is via 
System.Reflection. Today C# code can only call into DLR code by using the DLR 
Hosting API, though as Tomas mentioned that is improving in C#4.

I’ll add this to the wiki, as I’m beginning to build up our .NET integration 
documentation … keep asking questions like this to make my life easier =)

~Jimmy


From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tomas Matousek
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:37 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] more interop questions

It’s pretty simple: your can define a Ruby method on any class/interface. The 
method will only be visible from Ruby unless the class is a Ruby dynamic object 
(implements IDynamicObjectProvider using Ruby binders). For such dynamic 
objects Ruby methods will be available when invoked from dynamic expression in 
C# 4.0. The methods are also invokable via ObjectOperations class in Hosting 
API.

Tomas

From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ivan Porto Carrero
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:20 AM
To: ironruby-core
Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] more interop questions

I know these sound like pretty basic questions.. but I'm playing devil's 
advocate here (maybe rubyist advocate is better suited) and I imagine I will 
need a good chunk in a chapter somewhere to explain this stuff really clearly.


---
Met vriendelijke groeten - Best regards - Salutations
Ivan Porto Carrero
Blog: http://flanders.co.nz
Twitter: http://twitter.com/casualjim
Author of IronRuby in Action (http://manning.com/carrero)
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Ivan Porto Carrero 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi

I got into a discussion with Roy Osherhove about overriding statics.

I know in C# it can't be done obviously and as long as I stay in Ruby you can. 
I understand this may seem like straight-forward stuff. Can you give me a 
pointer where I can take stock of what I can and can't do to CLR objects and in 
which cases ruby things apply?

But when you go back and call it from a C# class it takes the CLR implementation

public class MyClassWithAStatic{

        public string HelloWorld(){
            return "Hello World!";
        }

        public static string GoodByeWorld(){
            return "Goodbye world!";
        }
    }

    public class StaticCaller{

        public string CallsStatic(){
            return MyClassWithAStatic.GoodByeWorld();
        }
    }

console session:
(master) » ir
IronRuby 0.4.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4918
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

>>> require 'spec/bin/ClrModels.dll'
=> true
>>> include ClrModels
=> Object
>>> MyClassWithAStatic
=> ClrModels::MyClassWithAStatic
>>> MyClassWithAStatic.good_bye_world
=> 'Goodbye world!'
>>> sc = StaticCaller.new
=> ClrModels.StaticCaller
>>> sc.calls_static
=> 'Goodbye world!'
>>> class MyClassWithAStatic
... def self.good_bye_world
... "From Ruby we say goodbye to you"
... end
... end
=> nil
>>> MyClassWithAStatic.good_bye_world
=> "From Ruby we say goodbye to you"
>>> sc = StaticCaller.new
=> ClrModels.StaticCaller
>>> sc.calls_static
=> 'Goodbye world!'

New session to figure out if something could be done before the type was 
actually created

+ C:\dev\caricature
(master) » ir
IronRuby 0.4.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4918
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

>>> require 'spec/bin/ClrModels.dll'
=> true
>>> class MyClassWithAStatic
... def self.good_bye_world
... "From Ruby we say goodbye to you"
... end
... end
=> nil
>>> ClrModels::StaticCaller.new.calls_static
=> 'Goodbye world!'

---
Met vriendelijke groeten - Best regards - Salutations
Ivan Porto Carrero
Blog: http://flanders.co.nz
Twitter: http://twitter.com/casualjim
Author of IronRuby in Action (http://manning.com/carrero)

Don Marquis<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/don_marquis.html>  - 
"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."

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