[ruby-talk:5612] Re: local variables (nested, in-block, parameters, etc.)

OK, my two cents' worth. What is that in yen? :)

Overall I like |a,b| better than <a,b>.

As for Guy's tilde, I partly like the idea. I think
the punctuation should go in front, and I think
maybe the tilde is ugly. But I do like that the
two kinds of vars can be mixed.

A notation using the semicolon (or other separator)
like |a, b; c, d| means that we cannot choose the
order of our parameters, does it not? Maybe for some
cosmetic or other reason, I want them in a certain order.

I could live with the "symbol" notation (was it Clemens
who proposed this?) although i can see that it might not
be consistent with how symbols are normally used.

I think maybe I like the lambda notation best of all.
When I took CS 450, Theory of Programming Languages,
years ago, one of the principles was "Similar things
should look similar; different things should look
different." (I think the textbook author was McLennan.)
This principle was the historical reason that, for
example, Algol uses brackets for arrays instead of
parentheses (in FORTRAN, function calls and array
element references looked the same).

Of course, there are times to keep this rule, and times
to violate it.

The whole block/closure issue confuses me since I have
never actually used closures in a real-life situation.

Is it reasonable to say: There are some blocks that are
intended to be used as closures, and some that are not?

If so, would it be reasonable to create some kind of
differing syntax for these? (Breaking as little code as
possible.) I think this is the lambda approach, is it
not?

Hal


--
Hal Fulton


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