From: Jim Menard <jimm@...>
Date: 2001-11-04T22:11:44+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:24323] Re: "yield called out of block"

Kent Dahl <kentda@stud.ntnu.no> writes:

> Jim Menard wrote:
> > ...except it ends in a preposition. "No block to which I may yield"?
> 
> But I'm not sure I would like it if an interpreter talks back to me as
> if it where an individual. Don't we have enough wierd emotional
> attachments to our computers as it is. (Or maybe that is just me? ;-)
> 
> Next thing you know we'll have to try to make them politically correct
> and Eliza features to soften the emotional blow of failing to write
> perfect Ruby code.
> 
> Hey, that actually might be a _good_ thing for C++ compilers :-P

I always liked Smalltalk class comments. Many are written in the first
person. For example, in Squeak the comment for class Object Out starts,

    "I am a stand-in for an object that is out on the disk. The object that
    is out on the disk is the head of a tree of objects that are out. See
    SqueakPage.

    "When any message is sent to me, I don't understand it, and bring in my
    true object. I become myself with the objects and resend the message.

    "I may not represent the object nil."

I like those types of comments. I (the programmer) am a person who needs to
relate to you (the class and its instances) so I can ask you to do things
and know how you will respond.

Jim
-- 
Jim Menard, jimm@io.com, http://www.io.com/~jimm/
"Sanity is a one-trick pony: rationality is all you get. With insanity,
the sky's the limit!" -- The Tick