From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2003-05-17T01:00:03+09:00
Subject: Re: public/protected/private syntax


"Guillaume Marcais" <guillaume.marcais@free.fr> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:B0000560431@smtp.rapiddsl.net...
> On Friday 16 May 2003 03:38 am, you wrote:
> > Can you explain that?  What do you mean by "don't fit"?
>
> I find it more convenient when the scope of the method is directly
readable
> from the declaration of the method. In Java, public/protected/private
are
> qualifiers:
>
> private int dontcallme();

Yes, I like that approach, too.

> In ruby, I need a second line to specify the scope of the method. Or the
> default scope was change before the method declaration. In both cases I
have
> to look around the code to find what the scope of the method is.

Well, nobody stops you using a "private" et al like in Java directly
before each method.  So in effect you want to force others to use this
pattern (either by enforcing a modifier or by using underscores).  I doubt
you will convince a lot of people though.

> With variables, the name only gives me all that information. It took me
a
> little while to get used to it (I was more used to the $ used the shell
way,
> to retrieve the value of the variable), I finally find it very
convenient. I
> was wondering if a similar concept could work with methods.
>
> Nevertheless, I do realize that what I proposed would break many
existing
> code. I just threw the idea to see what people think of it, if there is
a way
> to make it fly. If not, I can live very well with the existing mechanism
:)

Fine. :-)

> I also notice that the ProgrammingRuby documentation, for example,
doesn't
> specify which methods are plublic, protected or private. Is the scope of
> methods not considered important in Ruby? On the other hand, changing
the
> documentation doesn't need such a dramatich syntax change as the one I
> proposed :)

:-))

    robert