Newbie tutorial - if statements

ruby-talk
1

I need an opinion for my tutorial. I’m trying to figure out the easiest
way to teach if statements. I don’t know if I should teach them with the
"then" part or not.

if cond then
…
end

or

if cond
…
end

On the one hand, “then” makes it sound more like English. On the other,
it’s one more thing the student feels (s)he has to remember.

Any opinions?

Daniel.

2

My opinion is to drop the “then” part and to address “if” and “unless”
in the same section.

···

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 02:55 PM, Daniel Carrera wrote:

I need an opinion for my tutorial. I’m trying to figure out the
easiest
way to teach if statements. I don’t know if I should teach them with
the
“then” part or not.

if cond then
…
end

or

if cond
…
end

On the one hand, “then” makes it sound more like English. On the
other,
it’s one more thing the student feels (s)he has to remember.

Any opinions?

Daniel.

3

I can’t recall the last time I saw a “then” in any working ruby code - so I’d
leave it out.

···

On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 04:55:03AM +0900, Daniel Carrera wrote:

On the one hand, “then” makes it sound more like English. On the other,
it’s one more thing the student feels (s)he has to remember.

–
Alan Chen
Digikata Computing
http://digikata.com

4

Perhaps a small note saying:

“You may also see this in the form ‘if cond then’- This is another way
of writing if statements. Both are perfectly legal and mean the same
thing.”

Sun, 8 Dec 2002 05:09:02 +0900: Mark Wilson (Mark Wilson
mwilson13@cox.net):

···

My opinion is to drop the “then” part and to address “if” and “unless”

in the same section.

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 02:55 PM, Daniel Carrera wrote:

I need an opinion for my tutorial. I’m trying to figure out the
easiest
way to teach if statements. I don’t know if I should teach them
with the
“then” part or not.

if cond then
…
end

or

if cond
…
end

On the one hand, “then” makes it sound more like English. On the
other,
it’s one more thing the student feels (s)he has to remember.

Any opinions?

Daniel.

–
< There is a light that shines on the frontier >
< And maybe someday, We’re gonna be there. >
< Rando Christensen / rando@babblica.net >

5

I use it when I want to put an entire if - then - else statement on one line;
you need it to separate the condition from the first code block. It’s easier
to read in mancy cases than using the ternary operator, which I also
sometimes use in those situations - it depends on what I’m doing, why I’m
doing it and how much sleep I need.

Tim Bates

···

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 06:46 am, Alan Chen wrote:

I can’t recall the last time I saw a “then” in any working ruby code - so
I’d leave it out.

–
tim@bates.id.au