From: dblack@...
Date: 2006-03-09T01:41:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Having a block executed in the context of an instance

Hi --

On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Mike Austin wrote:

> rmagick@gmail.com wrote:
>> dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
>> 
>>> I have to say, I've been wondering for many years... is self.x = 1
>>> really *that* bad?  It just seems like such a  minor thing to me.  I
>>> certainly wouldn't want to see new punctuation introduced just to
>>> avoid it.
>> 
>> +1
>
> It may be a minor syntax thing, but I think it creates unnecessary ambiguity. 
> If there is a method called caption=(), I expect it to use that.  I don't 
> write 'self' anywhere else in Ruby, so it just seems odd.  Plus is helps 
> reduce hard to debug locals creation by misspellings.

You can look at it the other way around, though: you *always* specify
a receiver explicitly in Ruby, except in the one case where the
receiver is self and the syntax is such as to be unambiguously a
method call.

> class Button
>  attr :caption, true
>
>  def initialize(*args, &block)
>    instance_eval &block
>  end
> end
>
> button = Button.new do
>  var :x
>  caption = 'Click Me'
> end
>
> There is already 'attr' for classes, why not 'local' or 'var' for methods?

I'm not seeing the connection between the two halves of that sentence
:-)  I don't think the existence of the attr_* methods implies that
Ruby should adopt a system of variable declaration.  (At least, I
don't see how one follows from the other.)  But I'm not sure I'm
understanding you correctly.


David

-- 
David A. Black (dblack@wobblini.net)
Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypowerandlight.com)

"Ruby for Rails" chapters now available
from Manning Early Access Program! http://www.manning.com/books/black