From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2002-10-11T17:37:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know

Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

>Hello Peter,
>
>Thursday, October 10, 2002, 8:03:09 PM, you wrote:
>
>PH> Ruby has no pre/post increment operator!
>
>better variant:
>
>Ruby has no pre/post increment operator! instead of "++x", "--x" use
>"x+=1", "x-=1"
>
>
>

The lack of pre/post increment operators is a fact of life for 
programmers comming to Ruby from C, C++ and Java. The fact that it can 
parse without error leads them to get very confused and  wonder why 
their code doesn't seem to work.

The x+=1 and x-=1 constructs can only be used as prefix operators, as in:

irb(main):007:0> x = 3
3
irb(main):008:0> (x+=1) * 2
8
irb(main):009:0> x
4

And if you are used to typing ++ or -- then you are not going to be 
convinced with a "better variant" type of argument.

Maybe we need a rubylint package?