From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2002-07-31T04:11:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Language Q's

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Thomas" <Dave@PragmaticProgrammer.com>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: Ruby Language Q's


> Tom Sawyer <transami@transami.net> writes:
>
> > On Tue, 2002-07-30 at 11:13, Philipp Meier wrote:
> > > I'd prefer "=" instead of ":" because passing parameters is a kind of
> > > assignment in the scope of the functions body:
> >
> > philp,
> >
> > i agree. that makes more sense.
> >
> > you point out an important distinction between assignment, which is what
> > your doing when you pass parameters, ans hash association/pairs.
>
> But syntactically that's compatible: it's currently acceptable Rby to
> write
>
>    puts(a = "hello")

Are you saying you *disapprove* of this choice
for named parameters? If you disapprove, I agree.
If you approve, I disagree. Confused yet? (If you
don't approve, I can't help but refrain from not
disagreeing.)

What I mean is: The fact that an assignment returns
a value is an integral part of Ruby's express-orientation.
It enables stacked assignments, asssignments embedded
inside expressions, etc.

Heck, I'm used to this from C fram ages ago. I'd hate to
see it go away (nor do I foresee that).

It even bothers me a *tiny* bit when Ruby gives me a
warning about: if x = y then...

Sometimes I want to tell the interpreter: "I know the
difference between = and ==. Don't nag me." But of course,
I don't do it often, and it's not a big deal.

Hal