From: Alan Chen <alan@...>
Date: 2002-08-10T04:43:52+09:00
Subject: Re: ambiguity between local variable assignment and writter method

On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 04:30:28AM +0900, Dave Thomas wrote:
> This is an interesting issue: should internal users go via the setter
> method or access the instance variable directly. Clearly it depends on
> the circumstances, but I often find myself writing accessors that do
> things such as lazy evaluation, or which set dirty flags for
> persistent objects, and where I really do need to go via the method
> form. For those times, it's nice to have a shortcut, but it isn't
> something I'd fight hard for... :)
> 
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> Dave

For me, this is more a point of style. When I write non-trivial
accessors, I tend to name the internal variable differently
from the method name

class Misc
  def val=(v)
    # do stuff
    @in_val = v
    # do other stuff
  end
end

If the accessor is trivial, I usually leave them the same.


-- 
Alan Chen
Digikata LLC
http://digikata.com