From: Kevin Smith <sent@...>
Date: 2000-12-30T13:06:42+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:8327] Ruby implicit return values (was: Re: open3 woes)

Dave Thomas wrote:
>Holden Glova <dsafari@paradise.net.nz> writes:
>
>> class RuntimeInterpreter
>>  
>>         def invoke(file)
>>                 streams = Open3.popen3("ruby -w #{file}")
>>                 streams.at(1).each() { |line|
>>                         puts line
>>                 }
>>         end
>> end
>
>Q: what does 'invoke' return?

I'm still developing my coding style for Ruby. 
I've been hit by problems similar to this several 
times, where either a) I've counted on a return 
but none was specified, so it was unpredictable, 
or b) I wanted the method to be considered "void" 
[C++ background speaking].

So I've considered having a policy that *ALL* 
methods will return something. For those that 
don't have a meaningful return value, they should 
have either "return nil" or "nil" as the last 
line. I would exclude setters from that rule, 
probably.

Has anyone else been frustrated by this sometimes-
handy "feature" of the language?

Kevin