"Robert Klemme" <shortcutter / googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:5s2hosF174p90U1 / mid.individual.net...
>
> Bottom line: if you want a safer language with typed and declared 
> variables use one.  This is such a fundamental change to the language that 
> it does not fit in very well.  I also suggest to keep methods short.  This 
> will help improve structure of the code and avoid all sorts of other bugs 
> as well.

    Typed variables would be a huge change to Ruby but I disagree that 
declaration would be.  It's a small, simple change and a feature that many 
languages have, including other dynamically typed languages and Ruby's 
precurser (if one can call it that).  It's a little against Ruby culture but 
it's not hard to implement nor would it change the language much...