In article <O1427.58842$AM.1588698 / e420r-sjo3.usenetserver.com>, "Jos
Backus" <josb / cncdsl.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 02:07:25AM +0900, Dave Thomas wrote:
>> > to open the file "data" for append.  Similarly with "> file", "<
>> > file", "+> file", "+< file" etc.
>> > 
>> > As far as I know, this syntax isn't available in Ruby,
> 
> Fwiw, I happen to think that this is a Good Thing, and I am not alone:


You'll probably think I'm mad, given the apparent effort I've exerted to
get it working, but I agree with you !!

I put the effort in for a couple of reasons:

It shows that it's relatively easy to do ... although, you may disagree,
given the time I've spent on this list discussing how to alias File.open.

I learnt a number of new things about Ruby by attempting to make it work
.... hence the time I've spent discussing it on this list :-).

While I think using the facilities already provided is much easier to
remember than all the funny symbols (particularly things like "+>"), I
figure if it makes a couple of perl programmers feel sufficiently at home
that they continue to play with Ruby, we might end up with a few more
converts.

Of course, we might end up with a bunch of Ruby programmers who keep
writing it like it's perl.  Fortunately, if that happens, no-one on this
list knows where I live :-).