From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-07-22T21:21:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Keyword "with"

On Monday, July 21, 2003, 10:29:20 PM, Michael wrote:


>> It won't help readability, as the construct x+=1 is rarely, if ever,
>> used in readable Ruby code.

> Out of curiosity, do you have any numbers to back this up?  Or is your
> assertion that "+= 1" _makes_ code unreadable?


Neither, and certainly not the latter.  It's just that I rarely see
"+= 1" in any Ruby code, readable or otherwise.  There may be some
programming domains where it's needed, but they're (I assert) rare.
Nearly every reason for using "x++" in C-like languages is redundant
in Ruby because of iterators, and rich data-processing methods in the
standard library.

Occasionally I count things explicitly.  More often, I gather the data
I need and call #size.  I certainly program in limited domains,
however.

Obviously, from the messages in this thread, it is in reasonably
common use.  The files under /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8 on my machine
yield 155 uses of /[+-]= *1/, most of which, at a glance, appear
stylistically justified.

Gavin