[rnicholson]

Why is

attr_reader :foo

faster than

def foo;@foo;end

Is this in 1.9.x? or 1.8.x? or both?

[texel]

Courtesy of Evan Phoenix... apparently in MRI, attr_reader doesn't create a method, instead creating a NODE_IVAR in the method table of the class. This circumvents method creation/invocation overhead and is therefore faster.