From: Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@...>
Date: 2007-10-19T23:27:23+09:00
Subject: Re: the level of Ruby programmers vs PHP's

On Oct 19, 2007, at 04:32, SpringFlowers AutumnMoon wrote:
>   print_debug($foo)
>
> will print
>
>   $foo is 3
>
> so if i have 20 expressions,
>
> like
>
> print_debug(2**3)
> print_debug(8**(1.0/3))
> print_debug(a + 2.038)
>   [...]
>
> it will print out the expression as well as the value at the same  
> time,
> as a convenience for testing and for debugging.

This is one of the few reasons I wish Ruby had macros.  Having a  
macro like this can be very useful, but it isn't possible with a  
function/method because the argument gets evaluated before being  
passed to the context of the function/method.  In the above examples  
print_debug would be passed 3, 8, 2.0 and some float value.

I don't know if it would be possible to have some special macroish  
functionality in Ruby that would allow "print_debug()" but not open  
the can of worms that is macros.

Ben