4 ms·

Ruby code is readable. So some of the documentation in say, Java, isn’t as necessary.

paulryanrogers 2mo ago
Debatable. I always found languages without parentheses inscrutable. To distinguish methods you have to have all method signatures memorized or rely on an advanced IDE with highlighting.
- bluerooibos 2mo ago
  > inscrutable. To distinguish methods you have to have all method signatures memorized or rely on an advanced IDE with highlighting. I'm confident that you're either an outlier or have simply come across a terribly written or badly formatted Ruby codebase - considering Ruby (and Rails which followed the same principles) was created with the purpose of being highly readable (made for humans [1]). What is advanced IDE highlighting? Do you mean.. colours? And memorising methods - huh? I really struggle to see how you can't tell which lines here are methods - https://gist.github.com/davidlares/5d136fa54572ad98e711e36843dc4410 https://gist.github.com/davidlares/5d136fa54572ad98e711e3684... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22090358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22090358
  - paulryanrogers 2mo ago
    I don't mean method definitions. I mean method invocations.
    - bluerooibos 2mo ago
      I see. In almost 10 years of using Ruby I can't say that ever bothered me.
    - pmontra 2mo ago
      The guidelines I remember are no parentheses for DSLs, e.g. the Rails validation methods or the associations, and parentheses for the other methods.
    - digitaltrees 2mo ago
      But you can literally inspect and interrogate objects. You can ask what methods exist. You can even make new methods at run time.
      - paulryanrogers 2mo ago
        Right. And that's the issue. I want to read at a glance, without having to ask tools. Monkey patching and lack of parentheses means dropping into a new codebase is like wading into a ocean of possibilities with every file.
        digitaltrees 1mo ago
        The community does generally document monkey patching and meta programming constructs. All other code tends to be self documenting. That’s all I am saying.
        paulryanrogers 1mo ago
        Perhaps I just didn't write enough Ruby. It all felt very hard to grok for the time I spent with it. Whereas other languages, even quite obscure ones, felt more parsable to me.

Debatable. I always found languages without parentheses inscrutable. To distinguish methods you have to have all method signatures memorized or rely on an advanced IDE with highlighting.

bluerooibos 2mo ago
> inscrutable. To distinguish methods you have to have all method signatures memorized or rely on an advanced IDE with highlighting. I'm confident that you're either an outlier or have simply come across a terribly written or badly formatted Ruby codebase - considering Ruby (and Rails which followed the same principles) was created with the purpose of being highly readable (made for humans [1]). What is advanced IDE highlighting? Do you mean.. colours? And memorising methods - huh? I really struggle to see how you can't tell which lines here are methods - https://gist.github.com/davidlares/5d136fa54572ad98e711e36843dc4410 https://gist.github.com/davidlares/5d136fa54572ad98e711e3684... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22090358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22090358
- paulryanrogers 2mo ago
  I don't mean method definitions. I mean method invocations.
  - bluerooibos 2mo ago
    I see. In almost 10 years of using Ruby I can't say that ever bothered me.
  - pmontra 2mo ago
    The guidelines I remember are no parentheses for DSLs, e.g. the Rails validation methods or the associations, and parentheses for the other methods.
  - digitaltrees 2mo ago
    But you can literally inspect and interrogate objects. You can ask what methods exist. You can even make new methods at run time.
    - paulryanrogers 2mo ago
      Right. And that's the issue. I want to read at a glance, without having to ask tools. Monkey patching and lack of parentheses means dropping into a new codebase is like wading into a ocean of possibilities with every file.
      - digitaltrees 1mo ago
        The community does generally document monkey patching and meta programming constructs. All other code tends to be self documenting. That’s all I am saying.
        paulryanrogers 1mo ago
        Perhaps I just didn't write enough Ruby. It all felt very hard to grok for the time I spent with it. Whereas other languages, even quite obscure ones, felt more parsable to me.