Confessions of a Python fanboy

[Masklinn]

On 30 Jul 2009, at 19:01 , Inky 788 wrote:
> On Jul 30, 12:04 am, alex23 <wuwe... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jul 30, 1:06 pm, r <rt8... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 1.) No need to use "()" to call a function with no arguments.
>>> Python --> "obj.m2().m3()" --ugly
>>>   Ruby --> "obj.m1.m2.m3"  -- sweeet!
>>> Man, i must admit i really like this, and your code will look so  
>>> much
>>> cleaner.
>>
>> How do you distinguish between calling a method with no arguments,  
>> and
>> getting access to the method object itself (because it _is_ an  
>> object,
>> y'know, it's OO all the way down...)?
>
> I agree with alex here. Will take the explicit syntax over the extra
> cognitive load of figuring out exactly what's going on with
> `obj.m1.m2.m3`.
There's no cognitive load whatsoever: it's calling methods. Always.  
Ruby simply gives you no other option. Now it could be very simple  
methods to instance attributes, akin to a java getter, but it's still  
only methods.

Furthermore Ruby has a pretty nice convention (sadly not used enough I  
think) taken from Scheme where it's possible to postfix a method name  
with "!" (note: the "!" is part of the name, there's no magic) to  
indicate that this method modifies the object it's called on rather  
than simply returning stuff.