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List:       ruby-talk
Subject:    Re: capital method names
From:       "Jason Voegele" <jason () jvoegele ! com>
Date:       2002-04-09 14:47:05
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> When I write:
>   a = 1
> or
>   def a; return 1; end
> 
> I can access the variable or method the same:
>   puts a
> 
> but if I write:
>   A = 1
> or
>   def A; return 1; end
> 
> then I must write:
>   puts A
> to access the variable, or
>   puts A()
> 
> to access the method.  This is a little bit inconvenient, since it
> means I can't transparently replace constants with methods (it recently
> came up when I had been using a constant to represent the number of
> seconds since receiving data before I would sound an alarm, but later
> wanted to make that number of seconds dependant on the time of the day,
> since more data comes in at certain times of the day than others).
> 
> Is this a feature or an oversight?

It certainly flies in the face of the Uniform Access Principle, which Ruby 
otherwise supports.  I would think that, given Ruby's policy of capitalized 
constants, it could first assume a capitalized name was a constant, then if 
no such constant was defined search for a method with that name. 

I'd say it's an oversight.

Jason Voegele


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