From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2001-11-30T06:22:23+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:26964] Re: short article draft for review

Tobias Reif <tobiasreif@pinkjuice.com> writes:

> Dave Thomas wrote:
> 
> > print "
> > "
> > 
> > is really quite bad...
> 
> Why? I can't see a disadvantage.

1. Move the file between Unix and Windows boxes: what happens to the
   literal newline? Is that what you wanted to happen?

2. It's obscure:

      print "
      "

   Could look like

      print ''

   with some spurious stuff on the next line. The newline character
   effectively disappears from listings and in editors, so your
   readers will have to take extra effort to work out what's going
   on. It's like me writing

     a = %
     exit


   To set 'a' to the string "exit". It works, but it takes a while to
   work out why.

3. Are you trying to communicate with your code? If so, why confuse
   the reader with non-idiomatic structures. I've never seen _any_
   code with a raw newline in it like that.

4. What happens if you move the code en-masse into a method:

     |a = 1
     |print "
     |"
     |b = 2

   might easily become

     |def my_method
     |   a = 1
     |   print "
     |   "
     |   b = 2
     |end

       
5. Why take 9 characters to do what you can do more clearly with 4?


6. I guess I just don't like it :)



Dave