From: "Berger, Daniel" <Daniel.Berger@...>
Date: 2005-09-22T05:42:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Large Ruby Apps ?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Warren Seltzer [mailto:warrens@actcom.net.il] 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 2:30 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Large Ruby Apps ?
> 
> 
> I am coming to Ruby having used the usual list of scripting 
> and C*  languages.  Since Ruby has such powerful programming 
> features, I think it may be used for some really large 
> system.  My decades long observation of software is that 
> small programs that succeed become large programs.
> 
> But I am concerned about Ruby's suitability for programming 
> in the large.  First off, the lack of the requirement to 
> declare variables sounds like an invitation to programming 
> bugs.

That's a very old school philosophy.  It just isn't so.

> It's just too easy to assign something to a 
> misspelling of a variable name.  Make the same spelling 
> mistake again and you won't even get a warning about an 
> undefined variable.
> 
> For example this 1-line program issues no error:
> 
> puts @whatever

You'll get a warning if you run with -w.  Also, those unit tests (that I
know you wrote) should catch that.

Regards,

Dan