An 'in' operator for Ruby? 20151111
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An 'in' operator for Ruby?
I have had two fairly small changes I wanted to make in Ruby. The first
was realized years ago -- hashes now preserve insertion order and iterate
in a predictable way. That's fairly minor, but it did/does have some use
cases, and it had no impact on performance.
Here's another one. Personally, this is a bigger thing to me.
I've always believed personally that Ruby should have an `in` operator.
I've mentioned this in speaking (including lightning talks) and in writing.
It's not a giant big deal for me, but it is one of my personal favorite ideas.
Here are some details.
My proposal
I propose to let x in y be syntax sugar for y.include? x
You may ask: Why?
- include? is backwards from common usage -- we don't ask whether a group
includes an item, but whether an item is in a group. The same is true of a container. - Ruby isn't English; and more generally, programming languages aren't human
languages. But programming languages are based on human languages and on everyday experience. We do sometimes ask questions like "Does this container or group include this item?" We are asking a question about the group.
if barrel.include? rottenapple # Is barrel going bad?
- But we also -- perhaps more often? -- ask questions like "Is this item
part of this group?" We are asking a question about the item.
if fruit in [:apple, :pear, :peach] # Is this fruit something I like?
- include? is backwards from mathematical usage -- we ask whether a member
is in a set ("epsilon"-like notation), not whether a set contains a memeber.- I ran across someone else a couple of years ago (I wish I could remember
who it was!) who bemoaned the absence of this operator. His argument was that he would have a "conversation" with an object, for example, when he tested it repeatedly. Here's a contrived example I just made up. if foo == var1 || foo =~ var2 || foo < var3 || var4.include?(foo) || foo > var5 To quote him as well as I remember: "I was having this perfectly nice conversation with foo, and then var4 interrupted it..."- I prefer to put the tested entity earlier in the statement:
if [GA, VA, MS, TX, MD, NC].include? state # ehhhh if state in [GA, VA, MS, TX, MD, NC] # better - Also a "variable/constant" issue -- I tend to put the
variable data on the left and the constant on right; this is unlike people who say if 5 == x. (After all, 5 is only equal to x very rarely; 5 is always equal to 5, even for very large values of 5.)- Also a question of focus: Whatever entity you are really dealing with,
name that one first.- Many languages already have an in operator -- notably
Python, Pascal, even SQL. It is familiar to users of those languages as well as those who use mathematical notation.- in is already a reserved word in Ruby -- used in the for
loop (syntax sugar for each). Let's increase the justification for its presence.- An in operator would sometimes make parentheses unnecessary:
if (10..100).include? x # Need parens if x in 10..100 # Don't need parens -- also prettier - The new-ish language Elixir (which I'm happy to report occupies a lot of
my time lately) also sports this operator. This is yet another reason to love that language.
Frequently Whined Whines
- I'd prefer a method. I understand this, but I find it to be
needlessly ugly. I like less punctuation, more whitespace. And I find this inappropriate for something that is conceptually an operator. if x.in mylist # ugly if x.== 5 # also ugly if c1.and c2 # ugly - if it worked if x == 5 # better if c1 and c2 # better if x in mylist # better- I'd prefer a method with a ? on it. I understand the concept,
too, but I find it inappropriate for what is inherently a relational operator. if x.in? myset # very ugly if x.==? 5 # very ugly - if it worked- What about for x in list ? Would this evaluate as for true
or for false ? Certainly not. It's a matter of parsing. The for loop itself is just syntax sugar.- I'll bet you like junctions, too. No, in fact, I dislike junctions
greatly. I don't even know Perl. Are junctions still a thing?- If you like SQL's in , you must like not in also. No, I don't
condone its use of "not in": if item not in collection # travesty! if ! (item in collection) # ok if x not == y # horrible Ruby travesty - if it worked Yes, I say this even though ! ( item in collection) requires parentheses. See the comment about parentheses on ranges.- What about precedence? I would place in at the same level of precedence
as the (other) relational operators < > <= >= etc.
Conclusion
People have ignored me on this for at least ten years. They probably still will.
That, as they say, is life.
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