Re: semenatics of if/unless/while statement modifiers

Hi --

On Thu, 24 Nov 2005, Sean E. Russell wrote:

> On Wednesday 23 November 2005 09:21, David A. Black wrote:
>> Until ready, vamp.  Until golden brown, bake.  'Til you drop, shop.
>>
>> They're just not the same that way, are they? :-)
>
> Nope!  But it is incorrect to say that the other way is uncommon in English.
> They're both common, and Ruby supports both idioms.

That's my point -- there are a lot of expressions in English that
sound weird if you put "until" first.

I have to say, I keep hearing (i.e., at least since I started using
Perl circa 1994) people saying that they find one or the other
if/unless order confusing, because of what's practiced in English (or
German, or whatever), and I've always wondered: does anyone *really*
find:

   puts "hi" if x

hard to understand?  Or am I some kind of genius because I don't? :-)

I think people are more resilient than they give themselves credit for
sometimes.


David

-- 
David A. Black
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