Robert Klemme wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> 
>> Now R is a functional language with (two kinds of) objects, not an
>> "object-oriented language". But I think I'd write the same way in Ruby.
> 
> Proper modularization helps readability and understanding in *every*
> programming language regardless of the idiom.
> 
> Kind regards
> 
>     robert
> 
> 
Exactly! Which is why Ruby can "get away with" a loose syntax, duck
typing, open syntactic elements as continuations, etc. So old
programmers like me who are new to Ruby are free to use semicolons and
curly braces the same way we do in C and Perl in R or Ruby just to
facilitate our thinking when we switch among languages.

For someone new to programming who choses to learn starting with Ruby,
though, perhaps our introductory "textbooks" ought to emphasize a coding
style that promotes factoring and readability at an equal or even
greater level than the basics of how to construct classes, objects,
methods, expressions and the other semantic elements of the language.