From: James Britt <james_b@...>
Date: 2006-04-11T00:08:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Adding in class attribute with a Module

dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 
>> On 4/10/06, kris <krisleech@interkonect.com> wrote:
>>
>>> PS. I didnt write cattr_accessor. I'm using Rails but I dont think it is
>>> opart of that?
>>
>>
>> cattr_accessor is a Railsism. It is not part of standard Ruby.
>>
>> I'm undecided whether it should be or not, but it is potentially very 
>> useful.
> 
> 
> If it ever is, I think it needs a new name.  It's a wrapper for class
> variables, but class variables, in my view, are not really suitable
> for implementing "attributes", because they are not uniquely
> associated with one object.  

But isn't a class an instance of Class?


Foo = Class.new # instance object of class Class
f  = Foo.new # instance object of class Foo


> I don't like the sprawl of the concept of
> an "attribute" of a class-hierarchy-plus-instances-of-those-classes.

The 'attribute' concept is messy as it is, but this class use seems to 
be a natural extension of the 'methods that get/set an object variable 
of the same name' idea.


-- 

James Britt

�Design depends largely on constraints.�
  � Charles Eames