From: Ilmari Heikkinen <kig@...>
Date: 2005-01-16T13:38:14+09:00
Subject: Re: [suby-ruby] Your all time desired fundemental Ruby mod

> Let say you're Matz, but without any of the pressures of keeping up 
> with a
> previous version of Ruby. What one thing above all others would you 
> like to
> see differ about Ruby?

Couldn't think of much else.. well, there's the usual Marshallable 
Everything, Tail-call Optimization, Real Threads, Automatic Parallelism 
:) (ie. array.map{|x| do_something_expensive(x)} would automagically do 
all maps in parallel)

But here's one:

Syntax sugar for parameter pattern matching + reflection for it

def sum(x, 0)
   x
when (_,100)
   raise "100 is bad number"
when (x,y)
   sum(x+1, y-1)
end

would mean

def sum(x, y)
   case [x,y]
   when [x,0]
     x
   when [x,100]
     raise "100 is bad number"
   when [x,y]
     sum(x+1, y-1)
   end
end

And you could query & edit them:

s = method(:sum)
s.patterns
# => {(x,0)=>Method, (_,100)=>Method, (x,y)=>Method}
s.patterns.delete((_,100))
s.patterns[(x,y)] = Method.new{|x,y| x+y}