Since I only got back from vacation, I'm replying to this thread
late.  To avoid clutter, I'm replying to 5 messages all in this
one email.  Skip what you want:

On 2002.07.26, Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell / yahoo.com> wrote:
> a.each {|x| p x }  # <- this line
> 
> How do you read the "this line" line?

I read it like it were Ruby code:

    for x in a; p x; end

If I had to read it out loud over the phone, I might read:

    for each x in a, p x.

When I read your code, before I got to the 'How do you read the
"this line" line?' I definitely (in my head) read the code as:

    on each x from a, p x.

However, that's because when I see .each, I skip over to the
block and look at it.  If the block weren't a one-liner, I
would read it as:

    on each element from a,
    using |...|
    do {...}


On 2002.07.26, Tom Sawyer <transami / transami.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2002-07-25 at 17:41, Albert Wagner wrote:
> > Sorry, typo:
> > for each x in a do p(x)
> 
> that has the same meaning but might be confused with the actual use of
> the for statement.

Remove the "each" and "do" and add some semicolons and an "end" and
it _is_ an actual use of the "for" statement.

I would call Albert's version a "verbose, human-readable version"
of the use of the "for" statement.


On 2002.07.26, Michael Campbell <michael_s_campbell / yahoo.com> wrote:
> <chuckle> yes, it was a merely syntactic (phonetic?) question; what
> does the line sound like.

What is the sound of one line of code clapping?


On 2002.07.31, Hal E. Fulton <hal9000 / hypermetrics.com> wrote:
> 
> I am reminded of the question, "If Helen Keller 
> fell over in the forest, would she make a sound?" 
> 
> :)

Damn, you beat me to it.  ;-)

> For my part, a.each {|x| p x} sounds something like:
>   Given a, for each x in it, do p(x)

"Do p() using x to each element in a."

This is what happens when you're Japanese and learn to read
from right-to-left.  My guess is this is how a native Japanese
reader would read the line of Ruby code and IMHO it's quite
intuitive.


On 2002.07.26, yct <yuchingtien / yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> a for each of your x do this...

"All your 'x' are belong to 'a'."

Sorry, couldn't resist.

-- Dossy

-- 
Dossy Shiobara                       mail: dossy / panoptic.com 
Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/ 
  "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
    folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)