From: swille <sillewille@...>
Date: 2005-11-07T12:32:09+09:00
Subject: Re: programming best practices

>
> But the way you've written it, rc is always false.  Did you mean true
> in the first line? :-)
>
> Also, it seems a little bit like you've got two error-reporting
> systems going on.  Maybe you could combine them:
>
>    def login
>      perform action
>    end
>
>    begin
>      login
>    rescue
>      ...
>    end
>
> etc.
>

Ah, yes, that was a typo.  My example possibly wasn't the greatest...
I couldn't think of exactly when I had used it last in Ruby.  It's
actually something I've been using in Java quite a bit because I've
been writing interfaces into JavaScript and there's no way (in
JavaScript) to handle the exceptions from Java, so I use a boolean
return value.  I decided at some point that I really like the
aesthetics of it.  After a colleague questioned that behavior in
another context though, I thought twice about whether it was a good
idea.  Basically, I suggested he use a boolean return value to a
method and he said something to the effect that it would be more
proper to return int-based return codes because "some_method true?"
didn't sound right.  I wondered if maybe I was going to regret not
going to college :O)