From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2007-03-28T20:57:16+09:00
Subject: Re: general question (different between methods and functions)?

On Mar 28, 2007, at 3:42 AM, SonOfLilit wrote:

> Methods are associated with a receiver object.
>
> Functions are not.
>
> The only things you can call functions in Ruby are lambdas, blocks,
> ... Even then it's not clear whether they are methods or functions.
>
> Everything else is methods.

The above is all true, but we do sometimes refer to calling methods  
in a "function-style" in Ruby.  That's when you call a method without  
an explicit receiver.  For example:

   puts "Hello world!"       # function-style
   file.puts "Hello world!"  # normal method call

Everything is still a method, this is just a name we use for the call  
style.

I only bring it up because it is sometimes referred to in the  
documentation for things like private scope and module_function.

James Edward Gray II