From: "William E. Rubin" <williamerubin@...>
Date: 2005-12-14T03:57:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Syntax checker?

> Regardless of what the example does, my point is, how should it warn you?

By saying "foo might be undefined at line 2351".

> When?

When you ask it to.  I'm not saying that such warnings should be output
by default.

> If it worked just by looking at whether it _may_ be undefined, then
> surely it'd always warn you in the above situation?

Assuming that you asked it to, then yes.  Or, potentially, there could
be a way to state, within the source code, for the benefit of this new
tool, that "Yeah, I already know that it looks like 'foo' might be
undefined on the next line (or in this function, or in this file).
Don't bother telling me about that".

> I can see that it would probably help in a lot of cases

I agree.

> but it would be
> an annoying gripe in a lot of the more complex cases, which is where Ruby
> shines.

Then don't use it in such cases.  Or, if you find it useful in some
complex case except for such annoyances, use it, but invoke the "Yeah,
I know" option described above.