On 10/14/06, rpardee / gmail.com <rpardee / gmail.com> wrote:
> But isn't almost everybody coming from *somewhere*? This seems to me a
> cost-free change--a win-win...

No change is cost free, and this is a lose-lose proposition.

You're complaining about:

  if foo
    do_foo
  elsif bar
    do_bar
  end

What does this look like in other languages?

  if (foo)
  {
    do_foo();
  }
  else if (bar)
  {
    do_bar();
  }

  if foo then
    do_foo;
  elseif bar then
    do_bar;
  end;

  if [ ! -z "$foo" ]; then
    do_foo
  elif [ !-z "$bar" ]; then
    do_bar
  fi

Which of these would you have Ruby emulate? All of them? If you're
wanting a PHP-ism, that's a damned good reason to *not* have it (IMO,
PHP has done *everything* wrong that's possible to do wrong in language
design). Why can't I have my shell-ism (elif), if you get your PHP-ism?

Sorry, but Matz made a choice here. If you don't like the choice, you
can either (1) create a preprocessor that converts your preferred form
into the correct form, (2) make an autocorrection in your favourite
editor to turn elseif into elsif as Ruby requires, (3) use a different
language, or (4) get used to it, already.

I've been using Ruby for four years; there are very few warts on the
language, and this ain't one of them.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue / gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
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               * austin / zieglers.ca