From: Andrew Hunt <andy@...>
Date: 2002-09-07T04:52:16+09:00
Subject: Re: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby

Denys Usynin observes:
	
	>I think this whole Least Surprise Principle is a load of bullshit that 
	>is invoked far too often for no good reason. It has a fancy name, but I 
	>translate it to myself as "when matz made Ruby he made sure the way it 
	>worked made sense to him". Excuse me, isn't it how all languages are(or 
	>should be) made?

Probably, but they are not.  I take the PLS to be a measure of
internal consistency.  C++, for example, does not have this
level of consistency -- it is riddled with special exceptions to
rules and many "dark corners" where it isn't at all clear what 
the expected behavior should be.  

The published C++ FAQ book is about 4" thick, after all, so I
submit that that language is actually FULL of surprises :-)

/\ndy