Re: pattern for implementation-private constants?

> It seems to me that class implementations often benefit from the
> use of constants
constants aren't the fastest variable type currently. however, YARV did
a good job, and now they are. my benchmarks yield:

# Ruby 1.8.6:
# global variable       0.490 ===============
# local variable        0.495 ===============
# constant              0.570 =================
# instance variable     0.573 =================
# class variable        0.612 ==================
# method                1.224 =====================================

# Ruby 1.9.0 (2007-04-24)
# constant              0.305 =========
# local variable        0.306 =========
# global variable       0.326 ==========
# instance variable     0.441 =============
# class variable        0.475 ==============
# method                0.626 ===================

> The only one I can think of is to define methods whose names begin with
> capital letters and therefore look like constants.
cool idea, but Ruby may force you to use Foo() then.

[murphy]