Ruby decouples the method that was requested (the "message" in Smalltalk OO parlance) from the one that is executed. This allows for a number of neat patterns,

Ruby decouples the method that was requested (the "message" in Smalltalk OO parlance) from the one that is executed. This allows for a number of neat patterns, like forward invocation, where one object can specify a set of messages to be sent to another object (or method!), or delegation, where an object can opt to handle a subset of messages and pass all others on to an underlying object (or method!). Delegation (especially with the extreme simplicity of SimpleDelegator) seems like the obvious solution here, at least to me, but some people prefer to use cache-busting mixins instead.