Re: Why does a lot of code not include parenthesis?

On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Scott Gonyea <[e-mail]> wrote:

> - Declaring a method: Always use parenthesis
>

Same, though there are some prominent people who disagree (Aaron Patterson).
I feel lost without them, though.


> I'm also a sticker on return statements.  Ruby will return the last value
> in a method.  That said, if your method is not simple, I'm very big on
> making sure everything is explicit.  Also, I'm big on using parenthesis in a
> return statement.
>  return(num1 ** num2) # ahhh
>
>
Not even C or Java make you do that.

On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 11:04 PM, egervari <[e-mail]> wrote:

> In the case of the sqrt line, those parenthesis are not required, and
> you're right - they are less readable.
>
> But take for example this line:
>
>    y = 10.div 10.div 5
>
>
It gets ambiguous if div takes more than one argument
y = 1.div 2.div 3 , 4

Does 4 go to 1.div or to 2.div?

I would write them like this, though as was pointed out, TIMTOWTDI
1.div(2.div 3) # one arg
1.div 2.div(3) , 4 # two args to 1.div
1.div(2.div 3 , 4) # two args to 2.div


> See, in Scala, you don't need the "." when you drop the parenthesis,
> so dropping them both turns out to be much nicer and clearer:
>
>    val y = 10 div (10 div 5)
>
>
Seriously? But that looks messy. It's hard to tell what is the method, what
is the variable, and how the code is formed at a glance. If 10 were stored
in a variable, it would look like div was an argument, not a method.

Yeah, I'm kidding. The point is you say those things about Ruby, because you
are used to Scala. But coming from Ruby, you'd say those things about Scala.