On 8/12/07, Thomas Hafner <thomas / hafner.nl.eu.org> wrote:
> "Gregory Brown" <gregory.t.brown / gmail.com> wrote/schrieb <b37300880708121526j299f1ed3t3b7e45851d9ec0e9 / mail.gmail.com>:
>
> > Gotcha.  IMO, there is no need for the abstraction if it's limited to
> > these two functions.
> > You're only talking about a couple lines of code, and your need for
> > this won't expand much over time, it seems.
>
> Nevertheless, if Ruby had explicit references (does it?), it would be
> simple enough to have just one function instead of the original both
> ones

You'll want to catch up on this thread:
http://rubyurl.com/FrJ

Basically, variables in ruby are just containers for references to
objects.  So you can't change their bindings, which would be what
you'd need to do the kind of assignment you've shown there.