Hi gurus and nubys,
Again here to bother you
whos the bigger bother? 
and i wouldn’t think you could be rude. (well, maybe if you REALLY tried)
I wonder:
why we introduce the ‘:’ syntax ?
its an obvious refection of the new hash syntax. in essence he’s saying:
def f(a,:b=>2,**kwd) # == def f(a,b:2,**kwd)
Why can’t we call a kwd arg like
f(1,b=5)I suppose this is to avoid conflicts with normal assignment…
but what’s wrong with making go away the assignment in method calling?
i dobt that should go away, but to be honest, i am stumped on the sytax too. when i first saw it i thought “why more syntax” the parameters already have names. we only need a way to specify them in the method call, not in the def!
that’s were your = doesn’t work. you can make an assignment in a method invocation. that’s just common place. (perhaps not used a lot, but enough) but adding => or : sugar to calls causes a conflict with the way in which ruby currently handles hash parameters. so somethings got to give, in order to do:
f(1,:b=>5)
PS
btw the ‘a: c’ syntax for hash is really cool.I always hate to type ‘a’=>b or :a=>b.
got a feeling symbols are going to get a lot more use if this happens. not sure how i feel about it. its certainly not bad, but it means even more syntax to understand. “hey nuby, a:4 and :a=>4 mean the same thing.”
Nobody expects a string literal or a regexp literal to work like the
rest of the code.
in what way?
But we expect this from Arrays and Hashes (and somewy Ranges).
This must mean something.
yes, it cetainly does.
Possibly that I need more coffe in the morning.
i’ll drink to that.
thanks for the bother,
-t0