ROBLOX Auto-Complete in OOP Module Scripting

[VixYzs (Vix)]

I recently picked up Object-Oriented Programming in ROBLOX. I have a few years of experience in coding with OOP languages (C#, Java, JavaScript etc.) but I never encountered this problem I have currently with Lua.

So long story short here’s my Person class:

local Person = {}
Person.__index = Person

function Person.new(name, age,gender)
	local self = setmetatable({}, Person)
	self.name = name
	self.age = age
	self.gender = gender
	return self
end

function Person:PrintPerson()
	print("Name:", self.name)
	print("Age:", self.age)
	print("Gender:", self.gender)
end

return Person

And the script that tests the module:

local PersonClass = require(game.ReplicatedStorage.Person)
local Gender = require(game.ReplicatedStorage.Gender)

local name = "Jefferson"
local age = 15
local gender = Gender.Male

local person = PersonClass.new(name,age,gender)

person:PrintPerson()

Now the issue is that when I try to call the PrintFunction() from the Module Script ROBLOX recommends me the : functions even through I’m using the .

I’ve been trying to find a way to tell the module script to only let itself be called with a : but there doesn’t seem to be any way to do it

The issue is small and not world breaking but I want to fix it to avoid future migraines of accidentally calling the function in an undesired way

[DonKingFrog (Don)]

This isn’t a bug but a Roblox feature, and you can’t fully hide those, unfortunately.

In Luau OOP, you can call these functions in two different ways:

Person:PrintPerson()

or 

Person.PrintPerson(self)

[VixYzs (Vix)]

I’m aware of it being a feature to call a function in both ways

. being without self being passed
: being self getting automatically passed

That’s why I’m trying to protect my code from accidentally calling functions that require self being called without it

Is there really no way?

[DonKingFrog (Don)]

The sad truth is no, there is no way to hide those.

I myself had many users constantly misuse my OOP modules because of this feature.
The only way to help users is to write a detailed read of how to use the module.

[VixYzs (Vix)]

I guess such a dynamic low level language comes at a cost then. Being careful when using the module functions and proper documentation is the solution.
Thanks a lot!

[DonKingFrog (Don)]

I guess the only way you could possibly fix this is by detecting if self doesn’t exist and applying a custom warning/error to notify the user about using colon functions instead.