From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2005-12-03T03:39:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Optimizing for Newbies

On Dec 2, 2005, at 12:24 PM, Matthew Feadler wrote:

> Also, these
>
>   rolls = Array.new(2){Die.new(10).roll}
>   return 0 if rolls.any?{|r|r.zero?}
>
> are very cool.  I was originally under the impression that the first
> line would create a two-element array *with the same Die instance in
> each element*, which would, of course, always result in a 0 total
> further down the code.

Nope.  The block is executed to create each element.

> The  second line is an example of Ruby's lovely ? notation, which I've
> noticed all over, but have yet to really grasp/master.  Thanks for  
> this
> example.

By convention, a method ending in a ? returns a true/false answer to  
the question implied by the call.

> A quick google
> (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=ruby+zip+method&btnG=Search)
> doesn't give much for the zip method, so it's still a bit magical  
> to me.
> Any references to recommend?

If you have Ruby's documentation installed just feed your command-line:

   ri Array.zip

Or you can look it up here:

   http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Array.html#M000391

James Edward Gray II