From: Alex Fenton <alex@...>
Date: 2005-09-15T00:46:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Ternary operator request

That's a cute idea. I do find myself writing code like

something.zero? ? x : y

But presently there's nothing "special" about method  names that end in 
"?" -
it's only conventional that they return a boolean, and they don't 
necessarily
have no arguments. In your example

some_method? a : b

how does ruby and the reader distinguish whether 'a' is

1) the first option for the ternary operator's return value or
2) the first argument to some_method?

As an example, this syntax doesn't look quite so appealing...

an_array.include? val x : y

alex

Robert Mannl wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I'm more or less an amateur programmer, but I have fallen in love  with 
> Ruby.
> 
> I have an improvement idea for Ruby - I don't know if this is the  best 
> place to post this, but I thought it might spark some discussion  about 
> whether adding this "feature" would be healthy for the language  or not.
> 
> Let's suppose we have a method called: "some_method?". Why not allow  
> writing ternary operator expressions like this:
> 
> some_method? a : b
> 
> instead of
> 
> some_method? ? a : b
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It feels way more natural,
> 
> 
> 
> Rob
> 
>