From: Gary Wright <gwtmp01@...>
Date: 2009-05-29T02:35:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Pythonic indentation (or: beating a dead horse)


On May 28, 2009, at 12:39 PM, Caleb Clausen wrote:
> On 5/28/09, Eleanor McHugh <eleanor@games-with-brains.com> wrote:
>>
>> The real answer to this issue is to have a pythonic indentation
>> pre-processor for those who find that of use, and to leave the
>> core language syntax alone.
>
> I did, already.

I'm not convinced of the general utility of a pre-processor like
this.  Obviously it can be used 'privately', but code that is
written with the expectation of being pre-processed is not
portable unless the wider Ruby community (or even other developers
in your organization) are prepared to run it through a preprocessor.

For that to work there has to be a 'standard' of some sort or
you'll have to distribute the pre-processor along with your code.
And that argues for it to be part of the language and *not* a
pre-processor.

Yes, it is technically possible for this to 'work' but I just don't
see the value in expending all that community energy to make it work.
I'd rather see better documentation, better implementations of the
existing syntax, gem compatibility with 1.9, frameworks that improve
my productivity, and so on.

Even if there was some way to prove that pythonic-indentation for
Ruby was 'better' than the current syntax rules any benefit has
to offset the costs of transition also (tools, developer workflow,
IDE re-writes, books, tutorials, bugs introduced in a mixed code
base, new idioms, etc.)

It just doesn't seem worth it to me.

Gary Wright