From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-11-08T01:28:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Making Instace Variables Private/Local

Nat Pryce <nat.pryce@b13media.com> wrote:
> 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.

Hi Nat,

Thanks a lot for the support and clarification.

I really think that, except the backward compatibility issue, making all
instance variables "class local variables" will make Ruby even more
suitable for large scale software development and not just
"scripting".  (And "big" software is good, because it is where
corporations usually pour most of their money into :) )

Does anyone see any disadvantages of doing this, other than:

1) Backward compatibility issue (which IMO should be handled in the same
way as the String#[fixnum] behavior change)

2) Performance (which can be handled cleanly by changing the class local
variables to C struct's if performance is really important)

Regards,

Bill