From: Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@...>
Date: 2006-06-02T17:12:08+09:00
Subject: Re: An alternative to the class Foo < Struct.new(vars) idiom and SuperStruct


On Jun 1, 2006, at 11:13 PM, Hal Fulton wrote:

> Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 01, 2006 at 09:33:29PM +0900, Jeff Rose wrote:
>>> I'm sold.  This will be great for easily defining event types in  
>>> EventMachine.  Why the complicated default argument values  
>>> though?  For simple cases how about just using hash syntax:
>>>
>>> MyClass = SuperClass.new(:a => 2, :b => 3)
>> The problem with this is that it makes positional arguments  
>> impossible, since
>> the Hash doesn't preserve the order; maybe
>
> [snip]
>
> That's another example of why I would like a data structure
> that  1) had a convenient notation for literals and 2) was
> "like" a Hash, but ordered.
>
>
> Hal
>
>

This is why I kind of like how in Perl => is just a synonym for comma  
(it is in ruby too, at least for Hash literals, the problem being  
that it forces a hash literal). then

def f(*args)
   args
end

f(1 => 2) #=> [1,2]

if you wanted a hash you could just do

def g(*args)
   Hash[ *args ]
end

Of course this takes away your ability to write things like

f(1, 2, :option => value)

but you could still do

f(1, 2, {:option => value })

I dunno. Maybe just use caller and some evil read the file in again  
(or SCRIPT_LINES__ to find out what order they called it in).