From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2002-09-10T17:36:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics

William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:

>
>    short code + consistency = easy maintainability
>

The problem here is 'short code' does not equate to minimalism. A 
minimal vocabulary (for a programming language) leads to some very 
lengthly code.

For example with 'not', '==', '<' and 'and' it is possible to code all 
the logical operators. As such '>', '<=', '>=', '!=' are syntactic 
sugar. But without them the code will get longer and much less readable. 
If I recall my Forth correctly this is how some of the operators are 
infact defined.

You can do without unary minus, the power operator (^ or **) and the 
remainder / mod operator as they are just there to make things easier.

Short code comes from a large vocabulary. Coding is easier when you have 
five varieties of loop at your disposal.

until <con> {...} end

is much easier to read than

do if not <con> {...} loop

(a la QuickBasic)