From: "Berger, Daniel" <Daniel.Berger@...>
Date: 2006-04-20T03:49:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Symbol#to_proc is just so beautiful

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Schierbeck [mailto:daniel.schierbeck@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 12:41 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: Symbol#to_proc is just so beautiful
> 
> 
> Berger, Daniel wrote:
> >>    [1, 2, 3].all? &:positive?  => true
> >>    [-1, 2, 3].all? &:positive? => false
> > There must be a way to ditch that '&' somehow.  I'd prefer this:
> > [1,2,3].all?(:positive?)
> 
> The beauty of Symbol#to_proc is that you don't need to change 
> any method 
> definitions for it to work; any method that yields a single 
> argument can 
> take a symbol proc as a block, and it'll work out of the box.
> 
>    arr.any? &:positive?
>    arr.none? &:positive?
>    arr.each(&:upcase!)
>    arr.collect(&:downcase)

I don't like it. It bugs me. That ampersand is an eye sore in otherwise
elegant syntax. I also worry about the inevitable, "Does that mean it's
a reference?" questions this syntax will generate from newbies.

Maybe, instead of changing Ruby to simplify Enumerable/Array/Hash
methods (and let's face it, that's about 95% of the reason most people
want this change) we should just, you know, change the
Enumerable/Array/Hash API to accept symbolic methods for simple
comparisons.

Just my .02.

Regards,

Dan