From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-12-06T01:30:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Attempted roadmap of future instance variables....

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 22:56:41 +0900, David A. Black wrote:
> By the way, I still strongly dislike the @_ form, and would prefer that
> all instance vars behave this way than that there be such a prefix.  (I
> don't particularly advocate that, but it would be a lot better than new
> punctuation strings.)  If I'm counting correectly, e're actually going to
> outnumber Perl in variable prefixes: [@ @@ @_$] vs. [$ @ %].  Well, OK,
> it's a bit misleading to put it that way, since Ruby's local variables
> will always be nice and clean-looking :-) But still.

I rather agree with you on disliking the @_ form, but perhaps for different 
reasons. In my module Transaction::Simple, I have named most of the 
variables in the pattern @__foo__ (e.g., @__checkpoint__) so as to reduce 
the chance of name collision. I'm not sure that I want magic behaviour 
because of my choice to do this.

I'm not sure that I understand what the differing semantics between @ and @_ 
variables will be, either, despite having read this thread with interest. 
What is the problem that @_ variables are trying to solve? (And what will 
happen with the currently ugly but legitimate variable name "@_"?)

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.12.05
                                         * 11.22.51