From: "Brian F. Feldman" <green@...>
Date: 2001-08-17T04:00:17+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:19916] Re: Keyword args (was: The GUI poll is in, and the resultsaresurprising)

Joseph McDonald <joe@vpop.net> wrote:
> 
> HEF> But whatever the syntax, Ruby is going to have keyword
> HEF> arguments... so we won't have to use the hash workaround.
> HEF> They will be similar to Python's, unless I am missing
> HEF> something.
> 
> HEF> Of course, Python doesn't allow an assignment to return
> HEF> a value (does it?). So this will be a problem for us...
> 
> HEF> In Ruby, a call like some_func(x=5) means "assign 5 to
> HEF> x, and pass that value 5 into some_func." So we need a
> HEF> different syntax, I think...
> 
> some_func(x := 5)  ?
> 
> I guess this would mean that you could not have a symbol "=".

A symbol is a keyword, not a method, so it cannot take arguments, therefore 
making this unambiguous.  I haven't thought through all the possible 
scenarios, though.

-- 
 Brian Fundakowski Feldman           \  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve!  /
 green@FreeBSD.org                    `------------------------------'