From: Eleanor McHugh <eleanor@...>
Date: 2009-07-15T00:11:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Twelve rules of Ruby

On 14 Jul 2009, at 15:33, Garry Freemyer wrote:
> I would think that the twelve rules should be in the form of what  
> things are, not what they are not.
>
> It is also implied that the twelve rules would be something to learn  
> early on .... so it's for those just starting to learn ruby.

I think the point is that most people involved with Ruby - even those  
with considerable experience - would be unlikely to consciously know  
all twelve (or however many) of these rules. In that sense they're the  
theoretical basis of expertise as opposed to competence.

Of course actual expertise cannot be distilled into an arbitrarily  
small set of rules because it embodies much more than just theoretical  
knowledge: you have to pay your dues if you want an instinctual and  
wide-ranging grasp of any subject, mostly by making large numbers of  
errors and then reflecting on their significance.

A couple of things I'd put on my personal list of Ruby rules:

1. Ruby is duck-typed. The type of an object is not the same as its  
class and objects can (in a complex program at least some will) change  
their identity at runtime. The only definitive type information  
therefore comes from message passing.
2. Learn Ruby/DL or (j)ruby-ffi and leverage your platform for all  
it's worth.
3. Metaprogramming is a right, not a privilege.



Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason