From: Dumaiu <Dymaio@...>
Date: 2007-12-10T00:40:01+09:00
Subject: Re: How much would variable declarations in Ruby make you wince?

On Dec 9, 9:40 am, Daniel Berger <djber...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 9, 3:27 am, "Tim Uckun" <timuc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >     A solution to my problem would be to require variable declarations.
> > > Something like the "my" keyword of a strict PERL script.  Ruby would
> > > probably not use "my," despite its PERL roots.  Maybe "var?"
>
> > I think it would be useful especially for people coming to ruby from
> > non case sensitive languages. I certainly don't see any harm in
> > setting up something like strict. If you don't want to use it you
> > don't have to.
>
> Once you make something like that optional it has a way of becoming
> mandatory in a cultural sense. Go ahead, write a Perl program without
> strict and try to get Perl community support. You'll be berated (and
> probably insulted) within 2 seconds.

	For Perl that may not be a bad thing.  And there's a lot loaded into
the words 'something like that.'  Safety features?  Optional
extensions?  Ruby is one big collection of optional "somethings."  I
don't think a *lack* of safety features should be culturally
mandatory, either.

> No, the solution is to stop writing monolithic top-down scripts where
> you can trip yourself up with such a mistake and/or write tests that
> would catch something so simple anyway.

	This sounds like Trans's objection.  But it's a post facto solution.
Relentlessly refactoring and testing during development could fall
into the 'premature optimization' category.

> In all the years I've
> programmed in Ruby I have never been bitten by the lack of strict
> variable declaration.

That's just the thing, some of us get bitten.  Please think of the
children.

> Where it *can* be an issue is with instance variables.

I have issues with those, too.


  Cheerfully yours,

       -Jonathan