From: dejaspam@... (Bill Atkins)
Date: 2004-04-08T05:34:18+09:00
Subject: Preferred Instance Variable Access Method

What's the preferred way of accessing a class's instance variables? 
Almost every example I've seen uses the @ form:

class Test
    def var_set
        @var = 3
    end
    def var_modify(v)
        @vare = 34
        return @var
    end
end

t = Test.new
t.var_set
puts t.var_modify 

The obvious problem with this can be seen in Test#var_modify.  The
programmer meant to change the value of @var but made a typo and broke
his code.  The program prints 3 instead of 34.

The way around this is through accessors:

class Test
    attr_accessor :var
    def var_set
        self.var = 3
    end
    def var_modify
        self.vare = 34
        return self.var
    end
end

This produces an error that can be caught.

My question is this: why is this form so rarely used?  Is it the extra
typing?  Is it somehow un-Rubyesque?  It seems like a good way to
catch silly errors like the one above.

Thanks,
Bill