From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-10-22T23:39:23+09:00
Subject: Re: What exactly does "rubyish" or "ruby way" mean?

2008/10/22 Nit Khair <sentinel.2001@gmx.com>:
> Over the last month I have been reading a lot of blogs, searching, going
> through source code of some apps and my pickaxe. I am still unable to
> clearly understand what all "the ruby way" means.
>
> I will be perfectly happy if you can tell me:
>
> 1. phrases to google on, or check in pickaxe
> 2. pointers to specific libraries or classes i can study
> 3. link to any article I may have missed, or blog
>
> The only thing I can put down, that i have gleaned, is the usage of
> procs/blocks, i.e. allowing the user to pass in blocks/yielding a value
> or self. I liked the chapter on Ruby Tk in pickaxe (since I am hoping to
> write a rubyish wrapper to ncurses).
>
> Surely there is more to the ruby way than blocks/procs/lambda. Would
> really appreciate pointers.

I cannot come up with a clear cut definition, but simplicity is
certainly a part of it. Here's another example. If you want to group
multiple values and use them as Hash key you can do

MyKey = Struct.new :name, :age, :gender

or you can do

class MyKey
  attr_accessor :name, :age, :gender

  def eql? other
    name.eql? other.name and
    age.eql? other.age and
    gender.eql? other.gender
  end

  alias == eql?

  def hash
    name.hash ^ age.hash ^ gender.hash
  end
end

or even

class MyKey
  def name; @name end
  def name=(x) @name = x end
  def age; @age end
  def age=(x) @age = x end
  def gender; @gender end
  def gender=(x) @gender = x end

  def initialize(name, age, gender)
    self.name = name
    self.age = age
    self.gender = gender
  end

  def eql? other
    name.eql? other.name and
    age.eql? other.age and
    gender.eql? other.gender
  end

  alias == eql?

  def hash
    name.hash ^ age.hash ^ gender.hash
  end
end

Kind regards

robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end