Andrew Hunt wrote:
> Denys Usynin observes:
> 	
> 	>I think this whole Least Surprise Principle is a load of bullshit that 
> 	>is invoked far too often for no good reason. It has a fancy name, but I 
> 	>translate it to myself as "when matz made Ruby he made sure the way it 
> 	>worked made sense to him". Excuse me, isn't it how all languages are(or 
> 	>should be) made?
> 
> Probably, but they are not.  I take the PLS to be a measure of
> internal consistency.  C++, for example, does not have this
> level of consistency -- it is riddled with special exceptions to
> rules and many "dark corners" where it isn't at all clear what 
> the expected behavior should be.  
> 
> The published C++ FAQ book is about 4" thick, after all, so I
> submit that that language is actually FULL of surprises :-)
> 
> /\ndy
> 

yeah and as I said, depending on your background , Ruby is just as full 
of surprises as C++ is.

My guess is Ruby won't surpise you too much only if you have Perl/Python 
background. That's it.

I am probably the only person in the world  who never used perl/python 
:)  When I first needed a scripting language I just learned Ruby 
instead. I love the language but I can by no means say it was natural 
and not surprising to me. Quite the opposite, I had to adapt
to the way Ruby's logic works and get the feel for it.

The great Principle is an empty sound. Larry  Wall should have never 
mentioned it.