From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2004-10-12T00:39:36+09:00
Subject: Re: ANN: Free-form-operators patch

gabriele renzi <rff_rff@remove-yahoo.it> wrote:
> 
> sure, but a method has a name wich explains what it does, an operator 
> does not. I understand that this thinking brings to "let's remove all 
> operators!" mood, but actually having just some is ok, specially if they 
> have a widely used meaning (say, + )

Actually, when you're trying to implement domain-specific languages atop
ruby, the operators often have a well-defined meaning; it just comes
from the domain rather than the larger body of 'programming languages'.
For instance, it might be nice to define a financial maths class with
$12 creating a money amount literal (what, no prefix operators? :)). It
also gives the community a chance to experiment with symbols for common
idioms (for instance, a ||+ b for elementwise array addition) - if the
symbols aren't intuitive they'll just die a natural death.

martin