Ruby class shortcuts
class Person
attr_accessor :name, :age
end
# same as:
class Person
def name
@name
end
def name=(name)
@name = name
end
def age
@age
end
def age=(age)
@age = age
end
end
Ruby is awesome. I think it has to do with the ease and beauty of Textmate but I really look forward to typing out code using the language. Additionally I’ve been introduced to many shortcuts which make writing code a lot easier.
One recent shortcut which I’ve been trying to wrap my head around is attraccessor. In the above code you will see the one line “attraccessor :name, :age” re-writes everything below.
It basically performs the read and write methods on a function. This allows you to call x.name and return whatever x is and also allows you to assign x.name = “Jahde”.
I’m sure I’ll be seeing other shortcuts that make writing code easier but this one stood out to me. I think I’m just shocked that 1 line can replace 12 but I’ve come to find this is one of the key attributes of programming itself. Ruby wants to make herself easy to love.