[Help] What do people mean when they talk of "overrides"
I know this sounds almost like a newbie question. But I have an important reason for asking.
When I first came on board "overide" was used in the context of inheritence when a subclass reimplementied a method it would otherwise have inherited.
Now in the context of packages and Monticello it seems to mean something quite different. And has come in the context of its new meaning to have become "evil" or at least undesirable.
As far as I can make out in the latter context it means one package overiding a Class>>method of another package. In otherwords breaking the critical assumption of packages that each Class>>method appear in one and only one package.
I don't have great confidence that I have this completely correct.
So can someone clarify the distinction between the two meanings? And maybe suggest a different way of expressing one of them to reduce confusion?
Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace
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hmm.. maybe 'foreign overrides' or 'external overrides' will be more precise? or 'cross-package overrides' :)
On 29/04/07, Jerome Peace peace_the_dreamer@yahoo.com wrote:
[Help] What do people mean when they talk of "overrides"
I know this sounds almost like a newbie question. But I have an important reason for asking.
When I first came on board "overide" was used in the context of inheritence when a subclass reimplementied a method it would otherwise have inherited.
Now in the context of packages and Monticello it seems to mean something quite different. And has come in the context of its new meaning to have become "evil" or at least undesirable.
As far as I can make out in the latter context it means one package overiding a Class>>method of another package. In otherwords breaking the critical assumption of packages that each Class>>method appear in one and only one package.
I don't have great confidence that I have this completely correct.
So can someone clarify the distinction between the two meanings? And maybe suggest a different way of expressing one of them to reduce confusion?
Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace
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Jerome Peace wrote:
[Help] What do people mean when they talk of "overrides"
[...]
I haven't been following the packaging discussions on the Squeak list, but it sounds like you've got it pretty much correct. In VisualWorks, at least (where I've been spending more time lately) "override" is used in both meanings. And in the packaging context, it does mean that a definition for the same class or method appears in more than one package, with one package "winning" and being said to "override" the other definition(s).
It would be better to have different terms for these two concepts.
I won't deny that package overrides are somewhat evil. But they are very very handy -- there are useful things that almost cannot be done without them. Defining a good model of override behavior is a first step.
Regards,
-Martin
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