title: What scope does an "at" sigil (@) give within Ruby functions?
body: <p>It's been a while since I last did Ruby programming -- looking at somebody else's code, I see the <code>@</code> sigil in a function (<em>not</em> a method -- external to any class definition), which I understood to be scoped to instance members.</p>
  
  <p>Is the module the implied <code>self</code> in functions?</p>