Ruby Warts

#!/usr/bin/ruby

def dostuff()
  puts "dostuff"
end

class Test
  def dostuff()
    puts "Test.dostuff"
  end
  def run
    self.dostuff
    dostuff
  end
end

t = Test.new
t.run

This program prints the following:

Test.dostuff
Test.dostuff

So, how can Test.run call the original dostuff(), which is shadowed?

According to #ruby-lang, "you can't". You must put the outer dostuff in a module, a class, or some other namespace and then access it explicitly, like "OtherClass.dostuff". Ruby is the only language I know of which cannot handle the case where class method names collide with their parent environment's methods. (C++ has a similar problem, but you can access the shadowed function by prepending a double colon to it -- ::dostuff();)

It seems odd that you'd have to call it explicitly, since ruby likes to eliminate explicit stuff where possible -- making "self." optional, for example, or "return". So, this seems inconsistent to me.

When I asked, I was basically told "you can't do that because it's bad design".