title: best way to set a default value on a property without ActiveRecord?
body: <p>I thought that this question ( <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7052509/how-to-do-attr-accessor-with-default-in-ruby">How to do attr_accessor_with_default in ruby?</a> ) answered my question, but I'm not using ActiveRecord and <a href="http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations_callbacks.html#after_initialize-and-after_find" rel="noreferrer">after_initialize</a> depends on it. </p>
  
  <p>What's the Ruby best practice for implementing a default value for an <code>attr_accessor</code>? Is <a href="http://apidock.com/ruby/Module/attr_accessor" rel="noreferrer">this</a> the closest thing to documentation about it? Should I stop using <code>attr_accessor</code> since it is private? </p>