On 12/16/05, Adam Sroka <adam.s / covad.net> wrote:
>
> I'm kind of new here, but it seems like debating the quality of one
> another's rudeness is slightly OT.

You are right of course, plus I was starting to get hypocritical and
be rude myself.

> My point is this: I am (or was) a Perl programmer and I do not like the
> "Perlish" syntax one bit. I didn't like it in Perl, and I don't like it
> in Ruby either. However, I object to the notion that Perlishness makes
> it offensive. Non-obviousness is what makes it offensive. The matcher
> syntax is much clearer.

I had a strong dislike for Perl after some bad experiences at one job,
but for some reason the "Perlisms" in Ruby don't bother me as much,
because as a whole Ruby tends to be so much more readable. Like
anything, I think there are times when using the $1 variables is
appropriate, and times when using MatchData is appropriate. To say one
or the other is the only proper way to code Ruby regular expression
matching is getting a little too pedantic.

In the same way I can't control perceived mailing list "rudeness", I
don't think the people in the MatchData camp can control how other
people code (no matter how passionate they are about the topic.)
Especially on a section of Ruby code style that is not really debated
(whereas lots of people will denounce camelCaseMethods etc.)

Anyhow, even this discussion is off-topic for the original post, so
I'm stopping here.

Ryan