Agreed. It seems messy at first, but what Ruby does is make it possible to write code in the most readable way. a[first..last] left, right = a[0...pivo

Agreed. It seems messy at first, but what Ruby does is make it possible to write code in the most readable way. a[first..last] left, right = a[0...pivot], a[pivot...a.len] a[start, len] If the coder picks the right one and the variable names are good, the reader won't have to think about it.