Confessions of a Python fanboy

[Masklinn]

On 31 Jul 2009, at 15:12 , Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
> Masklinn a écrit :
>> On 31 Jul 2009, at 13:38 , Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
>>> Steven D'Aprano a écrit :
>>>> On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:47:04 +0100, Tim Rowe wrote:
>>>>> That and the fact that I couldn't stop laughing for long enough  
>>>>> to learn
>>>>> any more when I read in the Pragmatic Programmer's Guide that  
>>>>> "Ruby,
>>>>> unlike less flexible languages, lets you alter the value of a  
>>>>> constant."
>>>>> Yep, as they say "Bug" = "Undocumented feature"!
>>>> That's no different from Python's "constant by convention".
>>> Ruby's code blocks come from Smalltalk, where they are an absolute  
>>> necessity since message passing (which code blocks are part of) is  
>>> the *only* builtin control flow in Smalltalk - so you just *need*  
>>> this construction to provide branching and iterations.
>
[misunderstandings on my part/clarifications on yours]
>> Well it does at least allow for the creation of new flow control  
>> structures in library land when the existing ones aren't enough  
>> (e.g. allows Ruby not to require the introduction of a `with`  
>> statement).
>
> Yeps. But then other "traditionnal" control flow features become  
> redundant.
They can be anyway: Ruby doesn't deprecate most control flows as the  
actual usages of blocks are a bit restricted (cannot be used for  
`while` as it would require the serialization to a Proc, and Ruby's  
syntax doesn't allow sending multiple blocks to a method so `if…else`  
is out as well). And I assume they reintroduced the for…in sugar to  
ease the transition from more traditional languages (using #each and  
others seems the suggested collection iterators across the community).