From: MikkelFJ <mikkelj-anti-spam@...1.dknet.dk>
Date: 2001-08-04T19:10:51+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:19121] Something nicer than @?

One of the things I like least about Ruby is they way @ spoils otherwise
clean code visually.
Ruby is almost like an algorithmic specification from a textbook, except for
the @ in many places.

I suggest that we try to find a cleaner syntax for handling scope object
scope and class scope.

One suggestion, that is harder to parse, is to use postfix '
There is a conflict with strings, but using postfix (as opposed to prefix)
might make it work.
  x' instead of @x and x'' instead of @@x

class Point
  def initialize x
    x' = x
    y' = y
    last_x'' = x'
    last_y'' = y'
  end
end

I have also considered . prefix, but that will not work when passing
parameters.

::x, ..y means something different.

Instead of @@x we could use class.x or shared.x similar to self.x. This is
more verbose,
but class members are used less frequently and the approach makes the code
more readable.
'shared' as opposed to 'class' avoids possible parse conflict with class
definition, but it shouldn't really be a problem.

class Point
  def initialize x y
    .x = x
    .y = y
    class.last_x = .x
    class.last_y = .y
  end
  def clone
    new Point .x .y  # bad
  end
  def clone2
    new Point .x, .y  # ok
  end
end

class Point
  def initialize x y
    :x = x
    :y = y
    shared.last_x = :x
    shared.last_y = :y
  end
end

Mikkel