On May 30, 2005, at 7:40 AM, Stefan Kaes wrote:
> This comes up again and again because the current behaviour is  
> inconsistent with the proudly stated principle of least suprise.

Matz has stated repeatedly that the POLS is *not* supposed to be  
applied to everyone. It is obviously impossible to provide little-or- 
no surprise to everyone, given that people have different expectations.

IIRC, Matz has asked that people stop using it. (Or at least  
certainly do not attribute it to him.) It was (again, IIRC) merely a  
general design guideline which Matz applied to his own expectations  
when designing certain features of the language.

How often have you seen people (myself as a newbie included) shout  
"WTF, this isn't at all what I expected. So much for POLS!" when  
things turn out imperfectly?

I have seen various powerpoint slides that tout Ruby's POLS as a  
feature; I personally find them to smell overly of hype, and (to the  
degree that I believe such overreaching claims will turn off  
newcomers who can sense marketese) would suggest that we heavily tone  
down any invocations of the POLS.