From: Josef 'Jupp' Schugt <jupp@...>
Date: 2004-09-17T20:56:15+09:00
Subject: Re: JRuby article

Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> It's a shame that they all use such unidiomatic Ruby, like
> 
> print "Hello, world!\n"
> 
> instead of
> 
> puts "Hello, world!"
> 
> and 'if not' instead of 'unless'. Oh well... at least it's going 
> to encourage me to try it out!

IRTIAMTOWTDI - In Ruby there is also more than one way to do it.

I think that there is good reason *not* to use 'puts' and 'unless'
because:

a) Using 'print' plus backslash escapes demonstrate more language
    capabilities than use of 'puts'. Same holds for 'if not' in place
    of 'unless'.

b) The most widely used scripting language is Perl. The 'print'
    example shows that one need not change output statements when
    porting from Perl to Ruby. Concerning the 'if not': I am pretty
    sure that every (former?) Perl programmer will try out if 'unless'
    can be used as well.

c) If you use more than one programming languages it is a matter of
    memory efficency *not* to keep in mind those language constructs
    that are special to a certain language but those that are common
    to several of them - unless of course these constructs are the
    reason why you use that certain programming language for a certain
    purpose.

Just my 0.02 EUR.

Josef 'Jupp' Schugt