From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-04-12T22:37:36+09:00
Subject: Re: How to Make a Method Ineffective Efficiently?

Thanks for all the responses.  I just want to add the final
clarifications.

Joseph McDonald <joe@vpop.net> wrote:
> Why do you call print_info with the string representations of the
> variables?  Why not just call it with the variables themselves and
> have print_info call the to_s if needed?  Or am I missing something?

I have used the method to_s only as an example; the actual problem that I
am dealing with is more complicated than the simple debugging
example (I am dealing with statistics, traces, and animations).  Besides,
even if I just pass the variables themselves, I still may pass too many
arguments, where in fact the method does nothing with those arguments.

Jean-Hugues ROBERT <jean_hugues_robert@yahoo.com> wrote:
> def debug( &proc )
>    if @@debug_debugging then
>      @@debug_file.write "Debug: @{proc.call()}
>      end
>    end
> end

> then use it:

>    debug{ "An inefficient msg: @{xxx()}

Actually because I will call the method debug too many often in too many
places, I want the procedure following the debug method call to be as
simple as possible.  The heavy processing is done in the body of the
method debug itself.  I have managed to transform the code.

Just one clarification that remains: Is it true that we should never,
EVER, use the "return" statement in a code block in Ruby?

For example,

    def debug ()
      if @debugging
        data = yield
        puts "data = #{data}"
        .... # do processing with data[0], data[1], ..., data[n]
      end
    end

    debug () {return a, b, c}

This does not work!

Regards,

Bill