From: Curt Hibbs <curt@...>
Date: 2005-03-15T21:05:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Autovivification & Javascript (was Re: [ANN] Getting Started with Orbjson tutorial)

Nick Woolley wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Curt Hibbs wrote:
> > I agree. In fact it was my positive experiences with JavaScript that
> > attracted me to Ruby.
>
>
> I've had positively *painful* experiences with ActionScript (a variety
> of ECMAscript).  The main pain was in the debugging of small errors,
> often introduced during refactoring.  A misspelt variable comes to life
> like a gremlin and things break mysteriously.  Add to this ActionScripts
> byzantine scoping rules (which Javascript may lack). Tracking it down
> requires binary-search style debug prints, and wasted so much of my time
> I was tearing my hair out.

I've had problems with that level of frustration in *every* language I used
(which must be over 15, by now)!

> In fact one of the things which worries me a bit about Ruby, as a
> newcomer, is that instance variables come to life in the same way - no
> variable declarations.
>
> I'm curious if you liked JavaScript despite that, or if you found a way
> around it?  Likewise, is autovivification an issue in Ruby I should
> beware of?

Its happened, although for me its been only a minor annoyance in Ruby
because my methods tend to be *very* short and using test-driven development
catches such errors fast.

Curt