From: David Vallner <david@...>
Date: 2006-01-12T00:36:51+09:00
Subject: Re: on parallel assignment

Christer Nilsson wrote:

>The parallel assignment syntax
>[a,b] = [c,d]   is not allowed
>
>I have to write
>a, b = [c,d]
>
>Going deeper
>[a, [b, c]] = [1, [2, 3]]   is not allowed
>
>I have to write
>a, (b, c) = [1, [2, 3]]
>
>I'm sure there is a good reason these constructs are disallowed.
>Can somebody enlighten me?
>
>Christer
>
>  
>
You should check out one of the websites that list upcoming syntax 
changes in Ruby 2.0 - parallel assignment is undergoing relatively 
significant changes to weed out possible ambiguity when it's used.

As well as nested parallel assignment is concerned, I'd say avoid - it's 
potentially a very confusing construct, and makes your intent unclear. 
Arrays usually imply the storing of values of homogenous type and 
purpose - when used in parallel assignment, it means you're most 
probably not using them that way, and should probably use a different 
data structure to store the information to make your code easier to 
understand.

David Vallner