From: "Ara.T.Howard" Date: 2005-05-31T01:00:18+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby != POLS [was Re: creating variable with eval] On Tue, 31 May 2005, Gavin Kistner wrote: > On May 30, 2005, at 7:40 AM, Stefan Kaes wrote: >> This comes up again and again because the current behaviour is inconsistent >> with the proudly stated principle of least suprise. > > Matz has stated repeatedly that the POLS is *not* supposed to be applied to > everyone. It is obviously impossible to provide little-or-no surprise to > everyone, given that people have different expectations. > > IIRC, Matz has asked that people stop using it. (Or at least certainly do > not attribute it to him.) It was (again, IIRC) merely a general design > guideline which Matz applied to his own expectations when designing certain > features of the language. > > How often have you seen people (myself as a newbie included) shout "WTF, > this isn't at all what I expected. So much for POLS!" when things turn out > imperfectly? > > I have seen various powerpoint slides that tout Ruby's POLS as a feature; I > personally find them to smell overly of hype, and (to the degree that I > believe such overreaching claims will turn off newcomers who can sense > marketese) would suggest that we heavily tone down any invocations of the > POLS. i can see your point - but this really shouldn't be any issue with computer programmers since a moment of reflection of the 'specification' reveals that it's POLS and not PONS. 2 cts. -a -- =============================================================================== | email :: ara [dot] t [dot] howard [at] noaa [dot] gov | phone :: 303.497.6469 | My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. | --Tenzin Gyatso ===============================================================================