I'm not saying there are NO features of python that are cool... I like their list comprehensions but, I do dislike the whitespace formatting extremely. so, the list comprehensions are like [ item*2 for item in items ] which is the same as: items.collect { |item| item*2 } I think their version is more readable... but beyond that, they have a cool conditional clause for the comprehensions... [ item*2 for item in items if item > 2 ] ... which lets you run a conditional filter, and then a procedure on the elements that passed. which would be the same as: temp = items.select { |item| item > 2 } temp.collect { |item| item*2 } I mean, the python versions are way more readable in these cases. those would be a nice little bit of syntax to pick up. So, I'm not saying there aren't some cool features ... I think we should have tuples too ( frozen lists that are optimized for speed since they are immutable ) Anyways, that's all I've got for now. Not trying to be bigotted, but I think Ruby's syntax is just fine as it is ( as far as indentation vs. end. ) Hope that makes sense. j. On 8/3/05, Austin Ziegler <halostatue / gmail.com> wrote: > On 8/3/05, Daniel Brockman <daniel / brockman.se> wrote: > > Jeff Wood <jeff.darklight / gmail.com> writes: > >> If you want python syntax, use python > > Yeah, and if you want regular expressions, use Perl. Last time I > > checked, Guido did not have any patents on layout-based syntax. > > > > I'm sorry, but I'm so tired of the categorical ``if you want > > feature X, use language Y'' arguments. > > > > Ruby has stolen tons of ideas from all over the place, and that > > has served us well. Why stop now? > > No one is suggesting to stop now. Layout-based syntax, however, is a > stupid idea that should have died with punch cards. > > Yes, I hate Python's syntactically significant whitespace. There's > other things (maybe) that Ruby can learn from Python, but this isn't > one of them. > > In general, I agree with you -- we shouldn't by and large say "if > you want X, use Y". But we should also discourage the importation of > the worst features of other languages. > > -austin > -- > Austin Ziegler * halostatue / gmail.com > * Alternate: austin / halostatue.ca > > -- "So long, and thanks for all the fish" Jeff Wood