From: Robert Dober Date: 2007-07-02T03:01:02+09:00 Subject: Re: Newbie Question. eval.rb variable scope issue On 7/1/07, Rishel,Wes wrote: > Thanks, Bill. It sounds like irb will fill my needs. > > I have to say that featuring eval in the tutorials when it doesn't work > for a simple set of interactions like setting a variable and then > printing it seems very newbie unfriendly. Well as I showed above it works if this is unclear from the tutorial than this is indeed bad a tutorial, maybe you would care to provide us with a link? Maybe you rather want to have a look at this http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/ > > Some languages have a culture that excludes all but the smartest and > those who are willing to devote all their time to memorizing the > nuances. I would put Perl in that category. The initial "affect" of the > Ruby language and community is else-wise, but a couple of things make me > wonder. This includes tutorials that don't work in every case and the > fact that there is no free version of documentation for the current > version, which was released > 3 months ago. But I am not sure I can follow your vision, we are quite aware that the documentation of Ruby is not top - but there is great stuff out there, like mentioned above. That said I do not think eval does not work, at least the behavior you have described is completely normal. Eval is not the point where to start and if someone starts at the toughest spot she will realize err that she started at the toughest spot. It might not be the best approach to learn Ruby by criticizing as you do, not that someone will care too much, you are just losing your time. > > If it weren't for people like you willing to respond it could be very > off-putting indeed. This is maybe the second time I have heard this complaint in this list; after two years of reading it, but we are all different and if you feel so, sorry. Cheers Robert -- I always knew that one day Smalltalk would replace Java. I just didn't know it would be called Ruby -- Kent Beck