From: W Kent Starr <elderburn@...>
Date: 2002-09-05T02:23:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics

On Wed, 2002-09-04 at 02:56, Gavin Sinclair wrote:

> My frame-of-reference for good language design is Ruby.  So compared to
> Ruby, I would add:
>  - list comprehensions
>  - calling procs would look like real functions, not arrays!
>      e.g. id = proc { |x| x };  id(12)   # not id[12]
>  - first-class functions (someone please correct me here)
>  - def within def
> 
> The first one is already discussed elsewhere in this thread, and I don't
> want to sound like a zealot just by mentioning it here.  The others
> probably have issues; I've not thought it through.
> 

While calling procs as foo(x,y) is consistent with other languages, one
must remember IMO that one of Ruby's strong points is its
"expressiveness". Procs -aren't- functions in the strictist sense, but
arguments -are- arrays. :-) Hense, foo[x,y].

Why do we need first-class functions? Ruby is really a collection of
base methods with built-in extensibility (either via extension of
existing methods or the creation of new ones.)

Def within def? Why not simply:

def foo()
	# do something
end

def bar()
	#do somehing
	x = foo
	# do something with x
end

Collections of short methods (which could be methods calling other
methods) appears more easily maintainable IMO. This was a point of
discussion awhile ago on the list here.

Regards,

Kent Starr