From: Nat Pryce <nat.pryce@...13media.com>
Date: 2002-11-08T00:50:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Making Instace Variables Private/Local

I think Bill's point is that it would be better for instance variables
to be hidden behind an interface made up of public or protected methods
so that the implementation of a base class can change without breaking
derived classes.  And I have to agree with him.

Cheers,
	Nat.

On Thu, 2002-11-07 at 15:31, dblack@candle.superlink.net wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> On Thu, 7 Nov 2002, William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:
> 
> > If you are still considering to use '@_var' or '@__var' to create class
> > private/local variables, are you open to the idea of simply making all
> > instance variables private?  The descendant classes then can access the
> > instance variables using 'self.var', where the method 'var' can either be
> > public or protected.
> 
> Your second sentence doesn't necessarily relate to your initial
> question :-) Meaning: whether instance vars are private or not,
> there's no reason to think that every instance var is going to have
> one of these:
> 
>   def var
>     @var
>   end
> 
> associated with it.  All sorts of other permutations are
> possible... including no accessor method, or this:
> 
>   def var
>     @thing
>   end
> 
> or this:
> 
>   def var
>     @var * 2
>   end
> 
> etc.
> 
> 
> David
> 
> -- 
> David Alan Black
> home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
> work: blackdav@shu.edu
> Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav
> 
> 
-- 
Dr. Nathaniel Pryce, Technical Director, B13media Ltd.
Studio 3a, 22-24 Highbury Grove, London N5 2EA, UK
http://www.b13media.com