Whither SmallScript? (was Re: Integer micro-benchmarks)

[Frank Mitchell]

phil hunt wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 30 Apr 2001 14:38:10 -0000, Andrew Hunt <andy at toolshed.com> wrote:
> > The @-prefix on instance variables [in Ruby] might,
> 
> Yuk. It's $one $of $the $things $I $dislike $about $Perl.

The '@' and '$' prefixes indicate instance variables and global
variables, respectively.  This differes from Perl in that:

1. The prefixes indicate scope, not type.  (I still get weirded out that
in Perl it's %myhash but $myhash{key} ...)

2. The ugly line-noise aspect discourages you from using globals, and
from using raw instance variables instead of accessor methods.  (In Ruby
you can define ivars and their accessors without using the @ at all.) 
Globals are a big OO no-no, and generally you want only one routine
modifying an instance variable, and ideally only one routine accessing
it directly.  So it all works out, kinda ...

-- 
Frank Mitchell (frankm at bayarea.net)