From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2002-07-10T18:51:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Case expressions and LHS of assignment....

Perhaps you could use an array to hold you instance variables rather 
than the 3 seperate ones. This then gives

def initialize
     @values = Array.new
    (1..3).times { @value << "Initial" }
end

def assign(x,y)
    @values[x] = y
end

Even shorter (especially without error checking :-) ) and much much clearer.