From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2008-12-16T03:38:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Function def at end of scripts

Hi --

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008, ara.t.howard wrote:

>
> On Dec 13, 2008, at 2:11 AM, David A. Black wrote:
>
>> It can serve a purpose, but please have mercy on those of us who like
>> our Ruby in order :-) It's really not that hard to get used to the
>> principle that the code (including method definitions) is executed as
>> it's encountered, and then you don't have to think about whether or
>> not to flip it.
>
> i like it in order too - logical order that is:
>
> class Controller
> before_filter do
>   require_user
> end
>
> def action
> end
> end
>
> class Model
> has_many :children do
>   def extension
>   end
> end
> end
>
>
> the reality is that logical order and organization is far more important, 
> consider reading a rails app 'in order' ;-)  or having to install your own 
> 'run' hook at the end of every test suite.  the reality is that it's 
> situational - if a script has 50 methods before it gets around to the 'main' 
> call any sane person might enjoy reading the 'help' method first.  this is an 
> overriding principle of my 'main.rb' lib and i think most people would agree 
> that reading something like

I'm not trying to make any big prounouncements or prescriptions about
the concept of order as a software engineering principle. I just
don't see code-flipping plus BEGIN {} as a general-usage good way to
organize code. There's nothing to extrapolate from this (e.g., about
ActiveRecord association semantics); I'm just talking (right or wrong)
about this one thing.


David

-- 
David A. Black / Ruby Power and Light, LLC
Ruby/Rails consulting & training: http://www.rubypal.com
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