Make all Sequel::Inflections' methods public

[kuraga]

Make all Sequel::Inflections' methods public.
I.e. we can use Sequel.inflections.pluralize in plugins, code, etc.
Why are they private?

[jeremyevans]

As a general principle of API design, methods should be private unless there is a need to call them by external objects. The problem with this change is that would automatically add these methods to the public API of Sequel::Model (e.g. Sequel::Model.pluralize). I don't think these should be part of the public API of Sequel::Model, they are an implementation detail.

One option would be to change private to module_function. If we do so we need to make sure that all of these methods on Sequel::Inflections are tested, since they would become part of Sequel's public API at that point. I'm not sure I like that approach. The inflection methods are an implementation detail to the working of Sequel::Model, they are not designed to be used by external code.

The inflector extension offers a publicly available inflector, but it modifies a core class (String) and is only included for backwards compatibility. It's possible we could add another extension that just made Sequel::Inflections methods public (using module_function), but I don't really want to encourage direct use of the inflector in new code.

It's easy to increase the scope of the public API, it's much more difficult to decrease the scope. For that reason public API additions should be heavily scrutinized.

Can you open up a thread on the sequel-talk Google Group and see what the community thinks about this? I'm not against the module_function approach all that strongly, so we can certainly go that route if the community is in favor.

[kuraga]

@jeremyevans, thanks for reply!

I just don't understand why "The inflection methods are an implementation detail to the working of Sequel::Model" if these methods don't use underlying Sequel::Model layer (cause they use received arguments instead)?

[jeremyevans]

Sequel::Model usesSequel::Inflections, not the other way around, see https://github.com/jeremyevans/sequel/blob/master/lib/sequel/model/base.rb#L4

[kuraga]

Ok, in other words: methods of Sequel::Inflections (even extended into Sequel::Model) don't use self. They don't rely on object's state. They are, well, "static" (in terms of C++). Are "static" methods implementation detail and should they be private?

[jeremyevans]

The purpose of Sequel is to offer database access and an ORM (Sequel::Model), not for inflecting strings. The inflections are definitely an implementation detail related to the ORM side of things.

[kuraga]

Thanks!

P.S.: The code when they use this API - here.

[kuraga]

The last question (I'm sorry very much for discussion here).

Why do we extend Inflections but not extend Inflections; include Inflections? Then I can use inflection methods in Sequel::Model's eigenclass but not from Sequel::Model's objects...

class Post < Sequel::Model
  constantize('Post') # ok

  def meth
    constantize('Post') # undefined method error (on meth call)
  end
end

What's the sense here? Thanks.

[jeremyevans]

In general the inflection stuff is not needed at the instance level, only at the class level (automatic table naming, association method creation).

This is ruby, you are free to include Inflections in Model if it makes sense in your application. :)