From: MonkeeSage <MonkeeSage@...>
Date: 2006-10-07T13:30:10+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the reason for this syntax?



On Oct 6, 10:10 pm, "Louis J Scoras" <louis.j.sco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> All of this leads to the question: If you have to code to a standard
> anyway--which you should--would you mind if the language enforced said
> standard?

Me? I don't mind justified syntax rules; but I don't like the coding
conventions of others to be forced on me. I don't like the (ethical?)
imperative "should" for subjective issues of taste. Regarding the OP's
gripe, the syntax rules there seem justified to me:

This has one syntactical meaning:

blah do
  stuff
end

This has another:

blah
do
  stuff
end while cond

And this has yet another:

blah
{ 'stuff' => 'more stuff' }.display

So requiring the block to start on the same line as the method
invocation is not simply that Matz likes to write code that way, but
that it creates a (not easily resolved!) syntactical ambuity otherwise.
So I don't think that the gripe has merit. However, speaking
hypothetically, if parens are valid in conditionals for grouping (i.e.,
if (a and b) or c ), yet there was a syntax rule that a conditional
without a disjunction or conjunction (i.e., if a ) could not use them,
for no other reason than because Matz didn't like them to be used that
way; then I would be annoyed.

Regards,
Jordan