From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-09-05T10:25:12+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

Hey, nice!  I like that.  Although using an iterator would be more
Ruby-ish and flexible, wouldn't it?  Besides, we've seen Perl and Python
make a real hash of hashes (sorry...)

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

Correct, but (please excuse my possibly ignorance and definite
inexperience) I think it's a bit messy.  I just can't see the uniformity. 
It'll come in time... and in the meanwhile, it doesn't get in my way.

Cheers,
Gavin