title: Ruby: How to make a public static method?
body: <p>In Java I might do:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public static void doSomething();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And then I can access the method statically without making an instance:</p>
  
  <pre><code>className.doSomething(); 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I do that in Ruby? this is my class and from my understanding <code>self.</code> makes the method static:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class Ask
  
    def self.make_permalink(phrase)
      phrase.strip.downcase.gsub! /\ +/, '-'
    end
  
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But when i try to call:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Ask.make_permalink("make a slug out of this line")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get:</p>
  
  <pre><code>undefined method `make_permalink' for Ask:Class
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why is that if i haven't declared the method to be private?  </p>