Feature #14397: public, protected and private should return their arguments instead of self

• Status: Assigned
• Assignee: matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
• Target version: -

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Matsuda-san suggested me that public, protected and private should return their arguments instead of self,
to write such code:`

require "finalist"
# see https://github.com/joker1007/finalist

class Foo
  extend Finalist

  final private def foo
  end
end

I believe that it's reasonable request, and also believe that there is no product code which uses the return values of public, protected and private.
Matz, how do you think about this change?
The patch is attached.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

• Has duplicate Feature #14396: public, protected and private should return their arguments instead of self added

[Eregon (Benoit Daloze)]

• Related to Feature #11541: Let attr_accessor, _reader & _writer return symbols of the defined methods added

[Eregon (Benoit Daloze)]

Would it be simpler for the semantics to always return an Array of symbols?
Otherwise final (and other potential uses) has to handle both a single Symbol and an Array of Symbol.

One concern is the extra allocations for the common case of a single argument given to private.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

• Target version deleted (2.6)