From: Albert Wagner <alwagner@...>
Date: 2002-11-01T02:54:14+09:00
Subject: Re: method-call style (was Re: Snippet: Tiny Featureless Ruby Web Server)

On Thursday 31 October 2002 10:42 am, Nat Pryce wrote:
<snip>
> > Of course they give different results: @thing is a state variable, stuff=
> > modifies the state variable, and stuff is simply an algorithm that
> > happens to utilize the state variable.  Assuming that stuff and @thing
> > are synonymous is what is wrong.
>
> Exactly my point!  And it looks like a trivial point when illustrated
> with the code above.  However, the point is as valid, although much less
> obvious to many programmers, when illustrated with David Black's
> original code, which was a direct assignment to and return from an
> instance variable.  And the point is even less obvious when the accessor
> functions have the same name as the instance variable:
>
>     def stuff
>         @stuff
>     end
>
>     def stuff=( new_stuff )
>         @stuff = new_stuff
>     end
>
> Cheers,
> 	Nat.

Hi, Nat. 
I guess I misunderstood the comment:

"Definitely use self.stuff to avoid breaking encapsulation."

I am still unsure of what is meant here.  I can only see using self.stuff  to 
differentiate between a var named stuff and a method named stuff.  But, 
personally, I would never use the same name for both.

-- 
"I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can 
tell you I did not have C++ in mind."
                                            -Alan Kay