From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2002-08-10T05:47:11+09:00
Subject: Re: ambiguity between local variable assignment and writter method


On Sat, 10 Aug 2002, Tom Sawyer wrote:
> why couldn't ruby just check to see if there was such a setter method
> first, prior to assuming it a local variable assignment? the only
> consequence of this would be that you could not use local variable names
> identical to your method names. something i tend to do anyway.

Because of the wild ways in which Ruby can do inheritance
(<,<<,#include,#extend) and delegation (#method_missing), methods may pop
up in unplanned spots. Your feature causes a leakage of influence between
the local namespaces and the method namespaces, which is highly
undesirable semantically ("hairy"), in addition of really slowing things
down.

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju