From: Ross Bamford <rosco@...>
Date: 2006-01-04T02:12:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Implicit block parameter?

On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 13:52:03 -0000, Devin Mullins <twifkak@comcast.net>  
wrote:

> dblack@wobblini.net wrote:

(David, can't see your message in the newsgroup, so I'll reply with this  
one)

>
>> Hi --
>> On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, Ross Bamford wrote:
>>
>>> Wicked :) I can confirm that seems to work in 1.8 (though I had to  
>>> make one change manually because the source is slightly different of  
>>> course). I guessed it'd be something that would be reasonably easy  
>>> (when you know how ;)) from the C side.
>>>
>>> FWIW +1 for inclusion in a future Ruby.
>>
>> You can submit it as an RCR if you wish, at http://www.rcrchive.net.
>> (I'll vote "Strongly opposed", but don't let that stop you :-)
>

Hmm, I might put together a bit of a proposal and do that. I hope you'll  
comment when you vote no, I'd be interested in your perspective on this :)

(Replying to Devin's message)

> For what it's worth, I'll probably only vote "neutral" for the lack of  
> readability it encourages (not naming the things). It's not as if people  
> name their variables "it" a lot... :)

Yeah, readability is a downside but I think with a name like 'it' it would  
mostly be pretty self evident, and of course it shouldn't preclude doing  
it the current way (declaring the argument).

That was the reason I didn't mention another idea, about making $_ the  
implicit block arg so you could do:

	['one','two','three'].select { ~/t[a-z]*/ }

(I don't actually advocate that but it occured while I was playing with  
the 'it' thing).

-- 
Ross Bamford - rosco@roscopeco.remove.co.uk