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For what it's worth, I don't think ruby achieves this goal either. I've been programming full time in Ruby for nearly three years and things like this [1] still

For what it's worth, I don't think ruby achieves this goal either. I've been programming full time in Ruby for nearly three years and things like this [1] still surprise me. Ruby feels less surprising than C++, sure, but that's a pretty low bar to clear. [1] https://makandracards.com/makandra/46939-ruby-a-small-summary-of-what-return-break-and-next-means-for-blocks https://makandracards.com/makandra/46939-ruby-a-small-summar...

loopz 6y ago
Principles of least surprise (or astonishment), is one of cornerstones of Ruby. However, the language itself is dynamic, so take the end result with a pinch of salt: The language's OO syntax is beautifully simple, incredibly easy to structure into classes/mixins and have tons of useful libraries, to write code with. Not always so much for reading code, refactoring or discerning what REALLY goes on in a Rails application..
- gregkerzhner 6y ago
  I think there is a great middle line for a language that is easy to work with, and provides enough safety to be maintainable for a long time. Environments like C++ and enterprise Java miss this middle line by being too cumbersome. However, Ruby equally misses this middle line, just in the other direction - it's too simple and dynamic leading to lack of maintainability in the long run. The best solution will be somewhere in between.
  - skrebbel 6y ago
    In my opinion, Kotlin, C#, and TypeScript all come pretty close.
jolmg 6y ago
My pet-peeve in ruby: '//'.split('/') # => [] instead of ['', '', ''] '/'.split('/') # => [] instead of ['', ''] ''.split('/') # => [] instead of [''] '//'.split('/', -1) # => ['', '', ''] '/'.split('/', -1) # => ['', ''] ''.split('/', -1) # => [] instead of [''] In comparison: "".split("/") # => [""] in javascript "".split("/") # => [""] in python
- drewcoo 6y ago
  But if "instead of" means "I expected," doesn't that also mean that Javascript and Python don't do what you expected?
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    JS & python both have: '//'.split('/') => [ '', '', '' ] '/'.split('/') => [ '', '' ] '',split('/') => [ '' ] so they indeed produce what parent expected.
simplify 6y ago
To be fair, blocks, procs, and methods are fairly fundamental to Ruby. After a bit of study, they stop being surprising. I'm sure there are other examples, though.

loopz 6y ago

Principles of least surprise (or astonishment), is one of cornerstones of Ruby. However, the language itself is dynamic, so take the end result with a pinch of salt: The language's OO syntax is beautifully simple, incredibly easy to structure into classes/mixins and have tons of useful libraries, to write code with. Not always so much for reading code, refactoring or discerning what REALLY goes on in a Rails application..

gregkerzhner 6y ago
I think there is a great middle line for a language that is easy to work with, and provides enough safety to be maintainable for a long time. Environments like C++ and enterprise Java miss this middle line by being too cumbersome. However, Ruby equally misses this middle line, just in the other direction - it's too simple and dynamic leading to lack of maintainability in the long run. The best solution will be somewhere in between.
- skrebbel 6y ago
  In my opinion, Kotlin, C#, and TypeScript all come pretty close.

jolmg 6y ago

My pet-peeve in ruby: '//'.split('/') # => [] instead of ['', '', ''] '/'.split('/') # => [] instead of ['', ''] ''.split('/') # => [] instead of [''] '//'.split('/', -1) # => ['', '', ''] '/'.split('/', -1) # => ['', ''] ''.split('/', -1) # => [] instead of [''] In comparison: "".split("/") # => [""] in javascript "".split("/") # => [""] in python

drewcoo 6y ago
But if "instead of" means "I expected," doesn't that also mean that Javascript and Python don't do what you expected?
- ithkuil 6y ago
  JS & python both have: '//'.split('/') => [ '', '', '' ] '/'.split('/') => [ '', '' ] '',split('/') => [ '' ] so they indeed produce what parent expected.

simplify 6y ago

To be fair, blocks, procs, and methods are fairly fundamental to Ruby. After a bit of study, they stop being surprising. I'm sure there are other examples, though.