From: Gregory Millam <walker@...>
Date: 2004-01-21T17:30:20+09:00
Subject: Re: New to Python: my impression v. Perl/Ruby

Received: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:59:59 +0900
And lo GGarramuno wrote:

> i = 10 # somewhere out there
> 
> # and then somewhere else...
> i.times do something end
> 
> is confusing as you have no clue what class i is and as such, no idea
> what times may be doing.
> In those cases, a for or while loop is preferable and should be
> enforced, in my opinion.
> In my experience, it is much more common for algorithms to be looping
> involving arbitrary numbers stored in variables than predetermined
> times, so I also tend to agree that such constructs are cute but not
> something I'd likely use often in real code.

Ever since I started using ruby, I don't believe I've actually looped based on numbers for actual programming. Why should I, since there is usually a number of better ways to do so, especially when doing it the 'ruby way'.

String's "each_byte" and Array's 'each' method defeats over 99% of the 'for (i=0;i<somenum;i++)' loops I'd use in C.

array.each do |item| ... end

loop do
  break if ...
end

Doing it that way is a lot more readable and understandable than using a for, while, etc loop.

Huzzah for Proc blocks!

- Walker