Instance Methods vs. static methods in serialization

Hello to the complete comp.object newsgroup!

I really like this newsgroub, and read it regularly (althoug I don't post really often), and allready learned very much from it.

Currently I started learning ruby, and together with some other articles (f.e. about serialization in .NET), I found that there is a little konflikt between two approches:

Some say that If I design utility methods, like serialization, why not put it into a static method of the class. Then we would have something like:

ClassX.serialize(objectX).

On the other hand, I found some articles about serialization where the people claimed that this is not really beautifull OOD, and such a method should be part of the object, much like Ruby too implements things. So coude would look similar to:

objectX.serialize();

However, beside asthetic issues I am not really shure what advantage brings the latter over the former?

And is it bad design to have the following (out of an Design and an implementation view):

<java_pseudo_code>
Class X {
public static void Serialize(ClassX x) {
// do serialization
}

public static void serialize() {
Serialize(this);
}
}
</java_pseudo_code>

Thanks,
Jörg Simon
.

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