From: dagbrown@... (Dave Brown)
Date: 2003-11-28T13:27:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Controlled block variables

In article <200311271651.09448.transami@runbox.com>,
T. Onoma <transami@runbox.com> wrote:
: But I wonder, couldn't the only exception be made for Proc? So without the 
: perens a Proc is a Proc, with perens it's evaluated.
: 
:      foo.aproc is a Proc object,
:      foo.aproc() is the result of calling the Proc
: 
: This kind of distinction is already made with locals vs. methods. Just b/c 
: Procs face the problem doesn't mean it has to be extend to all. Or am I 
: missing something further?

Yeah, you're thinking in Python, not Ruby.  Consider this:

    class MyClass
        attr_accessor :name

        def greet
            puts "Hi, #{name}!"
        end
    end

    foo=MyClass.new
    foo.name="Dave"
    foo.greet

Nice and straightforward, right?  "name" is an attribute in
MyClass, and you can get it and get it as you need.

Well, look at what attr_accessor actually does.  Let's expand it out:

    class MyClass
        def name
            @name
        end

        def name=(new_name)
            @name=new_name
        end

        def greet
            puts "Hi, #{name}!"
        end
    end

    foo=MyClass.new
    foo.name="Dave"
    foo.greet

If your suggestion were to be taken, then accessors would stop
working the way everyone's used to them working.  Lots and lots of
code would break.

--Dave