Eivind Eklund <eeklund / gmail.com> writes:

>> With `quick' I don't mean `edit test file, save test file, switch to
>> class file, edit class file, save test file, switch to shell, run
>> tests', and an `extract parts of the test file' somewhere in between
>> certainly doesn't make it quicker.
>
> Are you by this saying you are going to abuse Nathaniel's syntax to
> group as many of your tests there as you can?

Uh?  No.  There's no need to, I already write ordinary tests at the
end of the class file and that supports a quick code-test-code cycle
well, I'd only use the example syntax for tests that can serve, well,
as examples.

(Of course Mauricio just showed how the quick cycle can be preserved
with embedded examples anyway, so whatever happens I don't have to
worry about changing my coding habits.  Damn you Mauricio, wasn't rpa
enough to drown me in comfort and laziness?)

> I don't believe the readability of assert_equal and friends will go to
> the same level as an infix operator (which both you and Florian used)
> with "getting used to the syntax".  If it did, we'd all be programming
> in Lisp (and Paul Graham wouldn't say that "prefix operators for maths
> still feels weird after 20 years of programming Lisp").

Hmmm, as a little Lisper I think the matter is that prefix notation
here could feel less natural with regard to the surroundings rather
than in and of itself.  I remember trying cl-unit with its familiar
assert-equal predicates, which, ok, is prefix anyway, and then finding
another framework which stated conditions like (is (= ...)) which is
even *more* prefix, and I liked that one better.

Anyway, mostly I don't care about prefix vs. infix, but I agree that
seeing `assert_equal' and hearing it internally and making sense of it
requires more brain power than reading `==' or `#=>' and instantly
making sense of it, I'm just not sure that it's that relevant a
quantity of brain power.  Here in Rubyland we're used to try and make
0.002 go down to 0.001 whereas elsewhere people got used to live with
2^24. ;-)

Massimiliano