On Aug 4, 2005, at 7:31 AM, David A. Black wrote:

> Hi --
>
> On Thu, 4 Aug 2005, Takaaki Tateishi wrote:
>
>
>> [ruby-dev:26623] Ruby2.0BlockParameterNotation
>>  Sasada asked about new notation of block parameter. This issue is  
>> summarized
>>  at the following sites. Now ruby(HEAD) accepts the notation '-> 
>> (...){...}'.
>>
>
> I'm not clear on what problem or shortcoming this addresses.  Also,
> I'm concerned that this amount of multiplied punctuation is going to
> detract seriously from "clean" look of Ruby.  I know it's not just a
> matter of counting punctuation characters.  But going from {|x|} to
> ->(x){} seems like a major move in the "line noise" direction.
>
>

IIRC, part of the problem with the || syntax is that it makes it very  
difficult to support default parameter values, because the | becomes  
ambiguous:

   { |x=5| x+7 }

It's no longer possible to tell if the | marks the end of the  
parameter block or a bit-wise OR without reading ahead, possibly to  
the end of the block.

- Jamis