From: Shannon Fang <xrfang@...>
Date: 2002-12-05T09:11:38+09:00
Subject: Re: elseif?

Well easy to learn and easy to read is most important reason I like ruby.
That's why I am hypersensitive about the funny symbols. I would again
express my thanks to Gavin, and all rubyists here to help me understand
funny symbols and Symbol class.

I don't think you should attribute regex to perl. I love regex, but it
is not a perl thing. I use grep and vim... all support regex. About
other stuff like $_ $! $` .... I *hate* them. Probably using english.rb
is better?

Shannon

On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 08:50:55 +0900
Iain 'Spoon' Truskett <spoon@dellah.org> wrote:

> * Shannon Fang (xrfang@hotmail.com) [05 Dec 2002 10:39]:
> > * Iain wrote:
> [ snip regarding where 'elsif' came from ]
> > > It's spelt that way in Perl. Not sure if Perl nicked it from
> > > anywhere.  Most shells seem to use 'elif'.
> 
> > It's a bad thing to inherit or borrow...
> 
> Why? Ruby has borrowed many perlisms. Just look at the regex support and
> surrounding variables =)
> 
> Half of the attractiveness of Ruby to me is that it's much like Perl,
> but easier and with less typing.
> 
> > Since ruby support both && and || or, why not support both elsif and
> > elseif? Just a suggestion
> 
> Perl also supports '&&' and 'and', and '||' and 'or'. I imagine that's
> also where Matz borrowed those =)
> 
> The thing to note about those is that they have different precedence.
> '&&' is not directly synonymous with 'and'. 'and' has ultra-low
> precedence, thus obviating the need for parentheses in many cases.
> 
> Having elsif/elif/elseif/'else if' all be the same would be somewhat
> pointless.
> 
> Mind you, I'm still somewhat irritated that Proc and def are so
> dissimilar to each other. But I'll live =)
> 
> 
> cheers,
> -- 
> Iain.