On 25 Jan 2010, at 00:22, Robert Poor wrote:

[Coincidentally, Stefan's message about identically named (instance) methods arrived as I was composing this note. It's possible this is the same thing, but with a different twist...]

Different but, related: how to best admit name overloading.

One might expect that an instance reference calls an instance method and a class reference calls a static method even if they have the same name, but it ain't so. And the compiler doesn't issue any warning. Consider the following:

==== file: fn.ck public class F { fun static void method() { <<< "static method()" >>>; } fun void method() { <<< "instance method()" >>>; } } F.method(); // call method via class (new F).method(); // call method via instance ==== produces: "static method()" : (string) "static method()" : (string) ====

I can convince myself that this isn't really a bug, if "static" really means "make this variable or method shared by all instances", but it would be nice if the compiler warned you about identically named methods. (Note that the compiler DOES issue an error for identically named variables.)

It is possible to admit it. C++ prohibits it (checking in gcc), though one calls static and not by rather different syntax: #include <iostream> class A { public: static int a() {std::cout << "Hi" << std::flush;} int b() {std::cout << " there!" << std::endl;} }; int main() { A::a(); A().b(); return 1; } ChucK uses "." where C++ uses "::" for namespaces and "." for methods. My guess is that C++ prohibits it because the risk of making mistakes. A matter of taste, thus. But it could still be a bug - only the developers can tell. :-) Hans