[ruby-talk:16513] Re: Playing with Ruby Syntax (was: Initial thoughts about Ruby From a Smalltalk Programmer)

Mathieu Bouchard <[e-mail]> writes:

> If I know how those keyword arguments actually work (vaguely like
> "=>" hash passing, plus checking on the names of the keys), then the
> problem might be that it's too close to a hash parameter to be truly
> smalltalkish.  the defining feature of calling syntax in smalltalk
> is that it's the actual sequence of keywords that you are using that
> *are* the selector.  method. The keyword-arg feature does not select
> which method is called, which means that you have to write that
> separately.

Agreed: they won't help in method dispatch.

However, adding keyword arguments to the call will allow the
parser to be cleverer. Say the syntax is

   method arg1: <value>  arg2: <value>

then we could have automatic conversion of blocks to procs when they
appear after an argument name. This would let us write Smalltalk-ish
things such as

   my_if  a = b  then: { puts "one"} else: { puts "two" }

I can't see the harm in this, and feel it would make some things
easier to write. Others seem to dislike the idea. It would be
interesting to discuss it.



Dave