[ruby-talk:11878] Re: Option to allow Python style indenting?

   Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 10:10:02 +0900
   Posted: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 16:47:45 -0800
   From: "chris" <[e-mail]>
   Reply-To: [e-mail]
   Sender: [e-mail]

   Don't know whether this discussion would be better here or on the email
   list.  My searches haven't found a previous discussion on this topic -
   appologies if there was one.
   ---
   I find Ruby to very a very enjoyable language.  My other liking is Python.
   Particularly enjoyable to me is how the Tab style indenting works. I find
   that not needing braces or "end" statements *dramatically* cuts down on the
   screen space occupied by code.  Instead of 40 lines with 10 or 15
   braces/"ends", I have 40 lines of full code.  Nice.  It reads easier and is
   easier to work with (my opinion.)

   I'm aware that there are many people who don't like the Python style and
   that is OK.  I respect that.  One of the things I have noticed about Ruby is
   that it accomodates different styles in a way that doesn't break anything
   and allows people to (within bounds) use what they like.

   My question for all is, why not create an option in Ruby that would allow
   the parser to accept code that used indentation instead of "end" statements?
   Would this be really all that hard?  I, myself, couldn't do it, but I get
   the feeling that a relatively simple change to the parser would make it
   possible.

   Specifically, I would envision some code that goes before the current parser
   code that simply reads the file and uses the indentation levels to insert
   "end"s where needed.  Then the code would continue on to the normal parser.
   All of this would be turned on/off with a switch or setting.  Those who
   don't like it never need to use it.

   How about it?  Does anybody think this is doable and are there others who
   would like to see it?

   chris

Note that the Ruby "end" statements do not have to occur on
separate lines.  If you want to save screen space, you can write
	 if (predicate) then X else Y end
	 for i in (0..n) do function(i) end
all on one line in Ruby, which could be difficult to do with
an indentation-based syntax.

A central beauty of Ruby is that most everything is EXPLICIT.  Naming
conventions are enforced: variable names indicate their function and
their scope (constant, local, global, etc.)  Blocks are clearly
delimited in a robust easy-to-read manner.  The simplicity and
orthogonality of the language means that (contrary to your claim)
there's generally only one or two good ways to accomplish something in
Ruby.  As a result, it is very easy to read Ruby code and immediately
understand what's going on.  For this reason, adding a second
indentation-based syntax to Ruby would destroy the language.
(If anything, I would urge that the designer to remove the optional
elements of the Ruby syntax eg., require "then" after "if", etc.)
Eric