From: Stefan Kaes <skaes@...>
Date: 2005-11-22T17:10:32+09:00
Subject: Re: semenatics of if/unless/while statement modifiers

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

>Hi,
>
>In message "Re: semenatics of if/unless/while statement modifiers"
>    on Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:49:20 +0900, Stefan Kaes <skaes@gmx.net> writes:
>
>|Most language constructs can be abused by programmers to write 
>|unreadable code. For example, the following is valid Ruby code:
>|
>|def foo(x); "..."; end
>|
>|some_value = foo(
>|          begin
>|            x = 721
>|            y = 100
>|            while x>y
>|              x /= (i= 17; while i>0
>|                       i -= 1
>|                   end)
>|            end
>|          rescue
>|            puts "something strange happened"
>|            0
>|           end
>|           )
>|puts foo(3).to_s
>|
>|And yet you don't ban complex expressions inside function call arguments 
>|or on the RHS of an assignment, although they can be used to write 
>|pretty unreadable code.
>
>It's complex, but it's not harder to read than it really is, just
>because it's natural application of syntax rules.  I feel like
>altering local variable rule sometimes make code harder to read than
>it should be (I mean "back and forth" part of my previous mail).
>
>							matz.
>

I perfectly understand your argument. Anyone writing code like this

x = (
       line1;
       line2;
       line3;
       line4;
       line5;
       line6;
       line7;
       line8;
       line9;
       line10;
       line11;
       line12;
       line13;
       line14;
       line15;
       line16;
       line17;
       line18;
       line19;
       line20;
       line21;
       line22;
       line23;
       line24;
       line25;
       line26;
       line27;
       line28;
       line29;
       line30) if expr

should be shot ;-) although it's legal syntax.

Fact is, noone writes it that way.

-- stefan