in reply to Re: The Limitations of the CPAN
in thread The Limitations of the CPAN

Typo checking is actually better than Perl's IMHO, especially when checking module calls and such. For variables, i am very fond of attr_writer and attr_reader when I do need them, so there is no clobbering there. I never write foo.@bar = xyz as that's just bad style.

As for local scoping clopping outer scoping, I have not yet run across this problem, but I have never needed to use a variable twice with the same name in the same scope other than with local scope versus instance scope, and in which case, that all works fine.

I guess it depends on how you right your code, but the "Ruby Way" as it were does not run into problems like this, and it is not often a frequent complaint.

I get a lot more runtime type problems with Perl, especially due to the tendancy to abuse hashes and use less object encapsulation. The code is also more fragile.

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Re^3: The Limitations of the CPAN
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Nov 18, 2004 at 21:36 UTC

    Thus if you write Ruby well, you don't have many problems. Me too. If I write Perl well, I don't have many problems, either.

[reply]
Re^3: The Limitations of the CPAN
by tall_man (Parson) on Nov 19, 2004 at 17:11 UTC
    I never write foo.@bar = xyz as that's just bad style

    Most Ruby objects I have seen fail to self-encapsulate their fields. For example, it would be unusual to see something like this: 

    class MyObj
    attr_accessor :name
    private :name=

    def initialize(myname)
       self.name = myname
    end

    # more stuff using name or self.name instead of @name
end

    [download]
    Usually there would be raw references to "@name" all over the place. In perl, references to $self->{"name"} are typically considered bad style. If code inside and outside the class uses different means for accessing the fields, there is more danger of typos.

    But my main point was about the danger of declare-on-assignment, like this: 

    axxx = 1
if (rare_condition_I_forgot_to_test)
  axx = 2
end
print axxx,"\n"

    [download]
    If "axx" was meant to be "axxx" there is no error message and the program does not always work as intended.
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In Section Meditations