From: Zach Dennis <zdennis@...>
Date: 2004-10-01T00:46:25+09:00
Subject: Re: I Like Choice (Re: Range syntax theory and Re: Too Many Ways?)

James Edward Gray II wrote:

>
> I'm a fan of choice.  I don't think we should introduce 10 aliases for 
> each method, but a few here and there to appeal to a wider audience is 
> a really nice touch, I think.  a..b-1 is also a...b.  Nifty, use the 
> one you can remember and/or like better.  I think we should support 
> choice, not take it away.  The Java team is starting to get it, so I 
> say there really must be hope for us all.  Just my two cents, for both 
> threads.

I am not saying requesting we kill '...' . I was merely pointing out an 
inconsistency in the language and how the language is expected to be 
"easy, elegant ant natural" to increase the enjoyability of programming 
to the programmer. '...' is none of those things. '...' appears to be 
backwards and there seems to be no logical reasoning for why '...' 
should stay as '...' except for "that is how it has always been".

This argument works for those of us who have learned to do things this 
way and are content with it, but should we impose these rules for future 
versions of the language which will entail future programmers to use 
Ruby. Why continue to teach something that doesn't make sense? This 
approach seems flawed to me especially with Ruby supposing to "make 
sense". Should it not make sense in all areas possible (or at least 
stride to do so?) Again I am just asking hypothetically, I do not plan 
to go make a RCR for Ruby 1.9.

When I originally posted I thought someone would uncover the golden gun 
of reasoning for '..' and '...', but it appears that there is none and 
people accept things "as-is" for the sole purpose of them being "as-is".

Zach