From: David Alan Black <dblack@...>
Date: 2002-07-25T01:15:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Syntax "surprise"

Hi --

On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Mike Hall wrote:

> Kyle Rawlins wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 12:46:37AM +0900, Mike Hall wrote:
> > >       obj.method a, b, c {|i| xyz}
> > >   vs
> > >       obj.method a b c {|i| xyz}
>
> > Wouldn't this add a significant amount of ambiguity and confusion?  what if a
> > is a function that takes two arguments?  what if the second is optional?
>
> Don't we have the same problem now, with commas?
> We "solve" it with parens to group the arguments
> and to clearly specify who goes with what.

I don't think it's the same problem.  If you've got:

  obj.method a, b, c {|i| xyz}

and (say) b is a method call that takes one optional argument, there's
no danger that c will be interpreted as that argument.

I suspect that a Ruby-like language without commas separating method
arguments would end up with an awful lot of parentheses instead.  (We
do have/use them now, as you point out, but they'd also have to do
what commas now do.)


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav