From: Brian Candler <b.candler@...>
Date: 2010-09-10T23:18:06+09:00
Subject: Re: calling private accessors

Davy Brion wrote:
>   def set_the_name(value)
>     name = value
>   end

To Ruby, that's an assignment to a local variable, which then drops out 
of scope. That's why you have to do "self.name= value" to call the 
method.

If it really were private, you'd need

  send(:name=, value)

although being private rather negates the purpose of an 'accessor' which 
is to make values accessible :-)

> when calling the private accessor without using self, its 
> implementation
> clearly isn't executed but no exception is raised either... why is that?

Because it's perfectly legal to assign a value to a local variable :-)
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