From: Frasier Mruby <flyingkite@...>
Date: 2008-10-08T23:54:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Why not adopt "Python Style" indentation for Ruby?

I posted a message in this thread under the circumstances of:

1. I agreed that ruby had better to close the code block using a 
keyword. I didn't repeat the topic "why not adopt python style".
2. Some other ruby users (sound have much more ruby experience than me) 
has similar concerns about "END". (The author of 1st article in this 
thread seems like a ruby core contributor.)
3. Mats expressed his intention since 2006 to experiment new syntax as 
alternative for "END". (In 1.9, the ";;" was experimented but abandoned 
later.)

So basically I asked if other similar experiment would be made in 
future. And I wondered if curly braces "{}" could be considered as an 
alternative.  For blocks, use "do...end" if multiple lines, use other 
chars like "names.each [|name| puts name]" for single line.

|Michael Shigorin wrote:

> It helps in wider sense: while getting acquainted with a new OS,
> or with a university lab people who were there before you.
> Lurking and learning what is valued in this community and what
> is frowned upon helps getting into being valued and not frowned.

> So being patient to suggestions one wouldn't agree to is respecting
> the other side, but being patient to first learn about something
> and then ask why things are this way not the other (and only then
> suggesting to fix or improve something) is even more so.

I may not be alone. As I said in 2) above, it seems some 
more-experienced ruby users had similar concerns.

> It probably could but what you suggest is taking one of the worst
> design flaws in Python and planting it into Ruby.  It is not an
> improvement by any measure.

I appreciate the purpose of "END". I was not suggesting to use python 
style from my first post in this thread. Just wondered if there could be 
better syntax as an alternative.

> BTW Ruby is a nice language in terms of softly understanding OOP
I am excited about ruby,too.

>> Have you written to any C mailing lists, suggesting that C adopt
>> features from Ruby?
To be frankly, I can imagine if I haven't heard of ruby, and if I can't 
find others asking the same question, there are much chances I will send 
an email to python group suggesting them to remove the "self" out of 
python method argument list.  Syntax improvement requests, in my 
imagination, is not that an insult to a language, if one consider it's a 
suggestion with a good wish to make it better.  Maybe I underestimated 
language lovers' sensitivities.

> There's also a problem of time available.  As one proverb would
> put it, "one can ask so many questions that thousand wizards
> won't keep up answering".

I did the search both in Google and the forum, but didn't find a lot of 
discussion about alternative syntax for "END".  Since as David A. Black 
said (thanks for his reply, by the way), if similar question has been 
discussed "a million times", a FAQ page might help for both newbies and 
rubist to save everybody's time.  A topic discussed a millions times may 
suggest it's controversial, or suggest if there's room for improvement. 
Apologize for my ignorance if I missed anything.

Thank you for your time.
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.