From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2004-02-16T06:59:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Methods outside classes

Hi --

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Francis Hwang wrote:

> Some languages draw hard distinctions between "methods", "functions",
> "subroutines", etc., but Ruby's much more laid-back than that. You'll
> notice a similar sort of looseness with @ and @@ variables, which can
> act differently if they're declared at a global scope than if they're
> declared within a class or method definition.

I think the difference is mainly cosmetic, though.  At the top level
the default 'self' is an instance of Object, so if you assign to a
top-level class variable, it belongs to Object.  Similarly, if you
assign to an instance variable at the top level, it belongs to the
default object.  There's a kind of bootstrapping of the environment
going on, but I think it's consistent with the behavior of those
variables all around (if less visible).


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net