From: Avdi Grimm <avdi@...>
Date: 2008-03-04T07:55:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Question on the Ruby Programming Language Book

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 5:44 PM, Bharat Ruparel <bruparel@mercury.com> wrote:
>  1  Why do you have to create enumerated objects this way?  This seems a
>  long way off from Ruby's philosophy of being succint.  Just to define a
>  few "object" constants I have to go through this?

In general, Ruby programmers don't create enumerated objects.  There's
rarely a need for them.  The solution you demonstrated above is looks
like an example of how one might go about it if one really wanted to
emulate C++-style enumerations.  Generally you would just use symbols,
though.

>  The block is apparently setting the "name" to the "instance".  What does
>  this buy us from a programming point of view?

That's the part that actually creates those constants Season::Summer,
Season::Autumn, etc.  Without it they would not exist.

-- 
Avdi