31–39 of 39 posts
Is there a place we can voice our concerns over this move. I was just teaching Ruby to someone learning to code. I have to admit because all popular languages use leftward assignment it was one less thing to teach. => is pretty loaded as it is
Doesn't this introduce an ambiguity? def foo(*arg, **kwarg) puts "#{arg}/#{kwarg}" end b = 'meh' foo(:a => b) Now this produces []/{:a=>"meh"} But with right-assign [:a]/{} ?
To me this seems like a clear loss. The syntax is (as far as I can tell) strictly more verbose than the existing assignment syntax. Ruby is already plagued by a million-and-one ways to do everything, but at least in other cases simplicity (à la zen of Python) trades off for brevity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is the complexity increased?
As you read through code you can come across a huge switch and not know why until you look to the end. Now you’re reading bottom-up, which is just as unnatural as right-to-left for english speakers. Not necessarily more complex, but not less complex either IMO. I often say complexity can’t be eliminated, only spread around differently; I think we’re seeing that here.
Why do most languages use right-to-left assignments? Is it purely a matter of path dependence? I guess also that binding a value to a name usually indicates that you'll use the name later on, and having the name on the LHS makes for a better UI for looking up the value the name is bound to. On an unrelated side note, I've always thought "=" was a huge mistake in language design, confusing countless people who are com…
Why do most languages use right-to-left assignments? Is it purely a matter of path dependence? I guess also that binding a value to a name usually indicates that you'll use the name later on, and having the name on the LHS makes for a better UI for looking up the value the name is bound to. On an unrelated side note, I've always thought "=" was a huge mistake in language design, confusing countless people who are com…
"=" is still equality. It's not an operator that compares two values. It's an operator that defines the left hand to be equal to the right hand. I feel like "=" for assignment is fine. For boolean comparison something like "=?" seems most clear, like asking a question whether the left and right hand side are equal.
E.g.
a = 2
a = 3
2 = 3 //what???