From: CHubas <CHubas7@...>
Date: 2007-02-23T11:20:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Trade-off between variable name descriptiveness and readability

On Feb 22, 4:58 am, "David Vallner" <d...@vallner.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 06:32:26 +0100, Daniel Finnie
>
>
>
> <danfin...@optonline.net> wrote:
> >  > def sing_song(start)
> >  >      start.downto(1) do |num|
>
> Quoth Mr. Torvalds: 'If you have some random integer loop counter, it
> should probably be called "i". Calling it "loop_counter" is
> non-productive, if there is no chance of it being mis-understood.'
>
> I'd go with that, and not putting a #bottles method into Integer - I find
> that more or less pointless.
> David Vallner

For actual classes, I should agree, but to teach a newbie, I'd go with
num.bottles or num_bottles, as they're more explanative to keep track
of where did they come from, and what should they do.

Also, the implementation of the method depends on what are you
pretending to show (assuming it's for teaching). If you want to show
the power of OO, I'd stick a #bottles method onto Fixnum; if you want
to show blocks, I'd go with a method that yields the number of bottles
(or the string "No more"); I think in this case, you should give more
than one option. For example, another way would be.

class Wall

    attr_accessor :bottles

    def initialize(bottles)
        @bottles = bottles
    end

    def to_s
        "the wall"
    end

    def sing
        "#{@bottles} of beer on #{self} .....

etc...

and analyze which solution is the best. A good exercise for your
traine� wold be select the best approach and state why it is so.

Just sharing my point of view.

Ruben.