All I'd Wanted to Know about Ruby's Object Model Starting Out...and Mooar!!!
summary
Work-through of the CRuby source shows how Ruby represents every object as pointers to structs (RBasic, RObject, RClass), what lives in those fields—flags, the C-level klass pointer, method table and super—and how bootstrap code (init_vm, rb_define_class_id, make_metaclass) actually builds classes. The surprising detail: defining one class spawns multiple meta- and method-classes (about five in the example) and include inserts special include classes into the inheritance chain, producing the tangled singleton/meta class chain that Ruby's class/super methods then selectively hide.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Introduction to Ruby
- 1:06The Ruby creation myth
- 2:53The object hierarchy
- 3:55Introspection and self-discovery
- 6:08Singleton methods and classes
- 6:58Class methods and meta-classes
- 8:47C Ruby internal representation
- 10:39Method dispatch mechanics
- 12:17Bootstrapping and class creation
- 14:15Metaclass creation details
- 15:53The metaclass inheritance chain
- 18:31Singleton class implementation
- 21:25Modules and include classes
- 24:44Q&A and conclusion
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