From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2002-09-05T09:38:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics

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]

This bothered me a little, OUAT (once upon a time :), but not now. I 
like being able to use procs and hashes interchangeably. This makes it 
possible to think of a hash as a function in the sense of a set of 
ordered pairs:

   succ_mod_3    = {0=>1, 1=>2, 2=>0}
   succ_integer  = proc {|x| x+1}

   def cycle(succ_map)
     x = 0
     10.times do
       print x
       x = succ_map[x]
     end
   end

   cycle succ_mod_3    # ==> 0120120120
   cycle succ_integer  # ==> 0123456789

If you want to use procs and methods interchangeably, you have a little 
more work, but not much--just apply #method.