Re: [groovy-user] Style preference.

On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 14:39 -0600, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:

> Ruby does not warn for a space before the parens in a method definition. 
> It warns for a space before the parens in a method invocation:
> 
> foo (a, b)

That is true.  The question is why?

> Because it's making a guess that you meant foo(a, b) and are not using 
> (a, b) for a multiple assignment somewhere. Ruby has much more extensive 
> multiple assignment capabilities, so I think the warning is a good one 
> to have.

Sorry but this sounds like doublethink -- compilers should not be
guessing, either the expression is a function call or it is not.  In all
cases I have ever come across, the Ruby compiler recognizes such an
expression as a function call, so what is the point of announcing that
the definition of Ruby does not allow a space after the function name in
a function call when actually it doesn't matter.  Is it that the Ruby
grammar is ambiguous?

> (a, (b, c))) = [1, [2, 3]]

Apologies but what is this demonstrating?  This is a perfectly valid
statement in either Python or Ruby -- but sadly not yet in Groovy.

> You can certainly silence it if you like.

How?

I still don't see why f(x), f(x ), f( x), and f( x ) are function calls
but f  (x), f (x ), f ( x), and f ( x ) are not except by guesswork on
the part of the compiler.  Either space is significant (in which case I
will not use the language) or it is not.

--

-- 
Russel.
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