From: Carlos <angus@...>
Date: 2002-06-13T05:35:58+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby-dev summary 17252-17356

> |and
> |	5.times do |;a| a=gets; print a end
> |or
> |	5.times do <;a> a=gets; print a end
> |?
> 
> How about
> 
> 	5.times do a:=gets; print a end
> ?

The ':=' is nice, but it will become more complicated if later you decide to
add variable initialization (you can not initialize a block variable with
':=' (as I understand(?) it) because it is assigned in every iteration).

> Or even
> 
> 	5.times do let{<a=gets>print a} end
> ?

And here I can not initialize 'a' only one time for the 5 iterations.

I'm pointing specifically at a problem that other posted before: when you
need to initialize the local variable with an external object, only once:

now:

p = list
5.times do p p; p=p.next end
list = nil  # elements from 6th forward won't be destroyed until I do:
p = nil

with <> (if we can initialize):

5.times do <;p=list> p p; p.next end
list = nil  # ok, nothing points to the 6th element

And with my proposals I will not make examples because I know you don't like
them ;)