From: Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@...>
Date: 2007-01-20T02:14:50+09:00
Subject: Re: auto assign arguments?

Hi,

In message "Re: auto assign arguments?"
    on Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:58:06 +0900, "David Chelimsky" <dchelimsky@gmail.com> writes:

|Would you mind providing a brief explanation of your objection? There
|is no Reason for rejection with the old RCR
|(http://oldrcrs.rubypal.com/rejected.html#rcr3) and it would be
|helpful to me (and I'm sure others) to understand why you think this
|is a bad idea.

I thought (and I still think) it is a good idea to separate method
argument and assignment in general.  It's convention supported by most
languages, and mixing parameters and assignments gives me impression
of toy-language.

Besides that, I think formal arguments of a method (including their
names) can be seen as part of class API.  Allowing instance variables
as formal arguments seems like disclosing the internal issues.

Finally, I admit that the code like this

  def initialize(@length)
  end

is longer than

  def initialize(length)
    @length = length
  end

but I feel the intention of the latter code is far clearer than the
former.

							matz.