On 28 May 2009, at 20:41, Juan Zanos wrote:
>>>
>> And you're not going to get anywhere by acting as if significant  
>> indentation is a must-have for Ruby or any other language.
>
> I never said it was.  In fact, in my response to you I didn't  
> mention significant indentation at all.  I disagreed with the  
> current anti-conciseness arguments.   I suggested that if you want  
> to argue against a language feature then you need stronger arguments  
> than terse is hard to read.    Possibly the problem is the term  
> terse is being used incorrectly.  It doesn't mean hard to read.    
> Terse may mean "smoothly elegant, neat, clean, easy to understand,  
> or even brusque.  But it doesn't mean hard to read.

We may well be separated by a common language. It's unusual here in  
the UK for anyone to use the word 'terse' without meaning brusque with  
a tendency to rudeness, and when applied to code it's common currency  
for "reads like obfuscated C".

> I'm perfectly happy if you have good arguments against any  
> particular language feature including significant indentation.    
> I'll be happy to agree with your criticisms If I can find some  
> validity in them.   I don't own stock in any language features.
>
> I am a bit intrigued by these indentation ideas though.  In both  
> human and computer languages we tend to shorten things that we use  
> often -- even if it makes them irregular.    The 'end' word is one  
> of the most common things in Ruby.  Possibly the most common line in  
> Ruby contains nothing but 'end'.  It's perfectly reasonable to think  
> about the possibility of shortening it.


True. But removing it altogether isn't the same as abbreviating it  
(even txtspk leaves *some* of the characters in words to convey  
meaning).


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason