From: William James <w_a_x_man@...>
Date: 2006-12-24T05:35:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Help with a ruby idiom

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> > Hi --
> >
> > On Sun, 24 Dec 2006, Devin Mullins wrote:
> >
> >> dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> >>> It is indeed functionally equivalent to those, though all of them
> >>> would blow up :-)
> >> Not all of them.
> >>  a = b unless a
> >> works, for the same reason you described
> >>  a = a || b
> >> working. Here, the "a =" is parsed before the "unless a" is evaluated.
> >
> > Whoops, right; thanks.
> >
> >
> > David
> >
> Might I be a curmudgeon on this Christmas eve eve? I say that any idiom
> that's confusing enough that its semantics isn't *instantly*
> recognizable to an old FORTRAN programmer like my curmudgeonly self
> probably doesn't contribute to code readability. :) So I would write
> this out in "longhand" and not let the parser have an opportunity to
> confuse me. So my "idiom" would be
>
> if (!a) then
>   a = b
> end
>
> Or, since my curmudgeonly self has managed to learn Perl, :)
> 
> a = b if !a

a = b  unless a