From: Benjohn Barnes <benjohn@...>
Date: 2007-03-15T07:48:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Anyone playing with higher order messaging in ruby?


On 14 Mar 2007, at 19:57, Jason Roelofs wrote:

> I haven't personally messed with this kind of stuff but code like  
> this just
> makes me love Ruby even more. These types of, well DSL is really  
> the best
> way to describe it, in such little code, makes Ruby such a blast to  
> program
> in, and it's readable too!

I think I must be getting too old, or I'm being a spring time Scrouge...

While it's neat, and it's cool Ruby can do that stuff, I've got to  
ask "Why?".

I've come across this used in DSLs, but I generally think, "I'm sure  
you're going to get in to trouble down the line. Why don't you just  
use the regular syntax?"

I don't really see that it makes for an especially more concise  
program, and really, it just seems to be introducing a different  
syntax that's kind of crow bared in as an overloading of the current  
syntax and semantics: as such, it doesn't seem to act in an expected  
way. Frankly, it all seems reminiscent of some of the c++ template  
techniques which, while terribly clever, don't generally seem to  
actually achieve a lot that can't be done more simply in other ways;  
and introduce so much complexity that even a seriously good coder's  
complexity budget is nearly all used up with a very small problem.

No, you're right, I am getting old ;-)