From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-02-03T21:35:02+09:00
Subject: Re: %L, %l revisited

On Monday, February 3, 2003, 9:48:04 PM, Tom wrote:

> its utitlity comes from one simple fact: efficiency. when one uses:

>         x = <<-EOS
>                 this is
>                 come
>                 text
>         EOS

> or 

>         x = %Q{
>                 this is
>                 come
>                 text
>         }

> you've just thrown in an extra 24+ bytes of wasted empty space. and accounts 
> for the fact that the use of String#tabto has been publicized:

>         x = %Q{
>                 this is
>                 come
>                 text
>         }.tabto(0)

> which is a waste of processing and isn't very elegent.


This is misguided, IMNO (N = Naive).  24 bytes of wasted space - who
cares?  tabto(0) is a waste of processing - who cares?  Neither of
them is in a tight loop.

The utility or otherwise of any string-formatting feature comes down
to its elegance, to make code more pleasant to read and write.

Gavin