From: Tim Hunter <TimHunter@...>
Date: 2007-12-13T10:38:38+09:00
Subject: Re: comma separated lists syntax error

Andrei Maxim wrote:
> On 12/13/07, ry dahl <ry@tinyclouds.org> wrote:
>> I'm very disappointed that I cannot format my hashes like this
>>   { :a => 1
>>   , :b => 2
>>   , :c => 3
>>   }
>> The technique is popular in the haskell community; it has some obvious
>> benefits over the traditional
>>   { :a => 1,
>>     :b => 2,
>>     :c => 3
>>   }
> 
> Just out of curiosity, what are those obvious benefits? It's the first
> time I've seen somebody prefer commas at the beginning of a new row.
> 

I do this with C code. The idea is that you should make a continuation 
(here I use "continuation" to mean the 2nd and subsequent parts of a 
single statement that is broken over several lines) visually distinct by 
starting the continuation with a token that can't legitimately start a 
new statement. I found the argument persuasive for C code.

In Ruby, though, a comma at the end of a line is one of the ways to tell 
the parser that the statement is continued on the next line. Okay, 
different language, different rules. Nothing to get your panties in a 
wad about.

Of course, I cut my teeth on FORTRAN, which used a non-blank character 
in column 1 to indicate a continuation, so my standards probably aren't 
as high as they should be.

-- 
RMagick: http://rmagick.rubyforge.org/