Everything is a tradeoff. You say: > sometimes you don't have a name ready and it's actually better to defer naming the thing until you know what it is You c

Everything is a tradeoff. You say: > sometimes you don't have a name ready and it's actually better to defer naming the thing until you know what it is You can do that without this feature; you can use throwaway variable names like "x" and "y". Taking an example from the post: > (1..9).each_slice(3).map { |x, y, z| x + y + z } vs > (1..9).each_slice(3).map { @1 + @2 + @3 } The shorthand saves you 7 characters in the rare case when you truly have no idea what to call your block parameters (even a single-character name can be descriptive, eg if x and y are coordinates). That seems minimally useful. Meanwhile, you've made your block parameters look like instance variables, and everyone else (including all tools that work with Ruby code) has to learn why they aren't. Seems like a poor tradeoff to me.