From: Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell@...>
Date: 2002-10-18T23:57:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Please check my algorithm

> > It amuses me sometimes to see the accolades for how much easier
> ruby
> > is to read/write (or how much harder perl is!) because of the
> more
> > regular syntax.  Then inevitably when someone asks how to do
> > something, the responses leapfrog each other in terseness _well_
> > beyond reasonable readability.  =)
> 
> Small problems like this are a great way to explore some of Ruby's
> features, though. And every now and then, as you whittle and hack
> away
> at the code, you break through some sort of obfuscation barrier and
> everything suddenly crystallises into a beautiful new form or
> technique that is both terse and elegant, but which would never
> have
> been found if you'd stuck to the clear but verbose way of doing it.


Point well taken.  It might be a good idea sometimes however for
those among you who really know the language well (I'm not one) to
point out that this is the "compressed" version of a possible
solution, done at least in part as a intellectual exercise for the
submitter.

My thought here is that if a genuine neophyte comes here asking for
help and gets this 1 liner checksummed line-noise answer, they walk
away thinking "this is easier to read?", and may drift away.  While
I'm sure the person who submitted the answer was at least partially
doing it for his OWN education in How Ruby Works and its capabilites
etc.

Just today I saw, for example, a question on how to split a file into
pieces based on a regex in the file.  One of the answers was a very
good, but typical 1-liner that approached APL readability.  <shrug>
Maybe I'm just projecting a thin-skinned personality on the
questioner, too.


=====
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