From: "rpardee@..." <rpardee@...>
Date: 2006-10-15T02:30:15+09:00
Subject: Re: What is the reason for this syntax?

I confess I haven't really followed this thread carefully, but--I
totally agree on the 'elsif' keyword.  Wouldn't it be possible for ruby
to accept *either* spelling?

If so, I would definitely advocate it--you don't lose anything for the
perlsters, and those of us coming from other languages won't have to
deal w/the IMHO surprising spelling.

I remember dealing w/this same issue while learning pl/sql.  After
staring at my modest program for like 40 minutes looking for the
complained-of syntax error, I was bitter bitter bitter when I finally
learned that I was expected to mis-spell 'else'...

I actually thought ruby did this already--had to write a little script
to verify that it doesn't...

Cheers,

-Roy

Kevin Olemoh wrote:
> Hello I have been using ruby off and on for a few months and I have been
> having a great time with the language but a few things bother me about
> the syntax of the language itself.  The two glaring issues are:
>
> 1. The syntax errors generated by the following code:
>
> a.each
> do
> #stuff
> end
>
> for reasons I do not understand ruby demands that, that line be written as:
> a.each do
> #stuff
> end
>
> Quite frankly I find the second form to be more difficult to read
> especially if one tends to create blocks with braces rather than the do
> end keywords like I do.  Is there some specific reason that both forms
> are not supported by Ruby?  It is needlessly restrictive with respect to
> formatting in my opinion, perhaps a kind ruby-core developer could sneak
> this syntax change into a future release?
>
> 2.  What is with the elseif syntax specifically why is it elsif instead
> of elseif when ruby already has an else keyword?  I can't count how many
> times I got errors because I decided to type elseif instead of elsif
> while doing something with an if statement.  I can name at least two
> popular languages that use elseif not to mention the fact that if
> English is your first language you will probably spell out else without
> even realizing it since that is the correct way to spell the word in
> English.  Yes I know its a minor thing  but if no one voices their
> gripes how do people know something might need a bit of tweaking? :)