From: dblack@...
Date: 2007-05-23T01:55:50+09:00
Subject: Re: How to adopt "Python Style" indentation for Ruby

Hi --

On Wed, 23 May 2007, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> Anyhow, here's a couple of examples of things pretty much "standard Ruby" 
> that I still find confusing coming from other descendants of Algol 60 syntax:
>
> 1. attribute_accessor :person
>
>  self.person = "Ed"
>
> I really want it to be "attribute_accessor person" -- the constant mixing of 
> the same name with and without a preceding colon in Ruby is as confusing to 
> me as Perl's "$hash{'key'}" referring to an entry in "%hash" vs. another 
> variable entirely called "$hash".

That's not a syntax vagary, though.  Consider:

   class C
     x = "y"
     attr_accessor x
   end

   C.new.y = 1

You only get the "inert" identifier behavior with keywords

   x = 1
   def x     # not 1, of course
   end

   alias old_x x   # ditto

attr_accessor is just using normal method-argument syntax/semantics.


David

-- 
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