From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2002-09-04T11:21:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics

Hi,

In message "Re: Ruby aesthetics"
    on 02/09/04, "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> writes:

|I do think the idea of "significant indentation" is interesting,
|but I would want the tab character to be illegal. (Yes, I know
|the arguments in favor of tabs; let's not get into that one.)
|It's bad enough mixing tabs and spaces in an ordinary language,
|but in Python it seems like an additional inconvenience.

I do think the idea of "significant indentation" is interesting, but:

  * for historycal reason, we can't distinguish tabs and spaces at a
    glance.  this is very bad for "significant indentation".

  * somehow "significant indentation" brings separation betweeen
    expression and statement.  I don't like this.  I feel this is a
    restriction for no reason.  for example, in Python, lambda body
    must be an expression.  you have to define a named function if you
    want a function which body contains statements.

|Is this true? Ruby was written after Python was introduced?
|When was Python born?

True.  I knew Python before I designed Ruby.  Python started somewhere
around Christmas 1989.

							matz.