[ruby-core:95556] [Ruby master Feature#16275] Revert `.:` syntax

[tim@icelab.com.au]

Issue #16275 has been updated by timriley (Tim Riley).


# Ruby big comment -- 26 Oct 2019

I’m opposed to this reversion. I was looking forward to using `.:` in 2.7. I felt I should say this as a representative of perhaps a “silent majority” of Ruby users. 

I think that some of the additional ideas this feature was spawning (i.e. some of the other tickets referenced above) were potentially very helpful evolutions of the language. 

Regarding the point that a feature like `.:` should wait until it comes out as part of a “whole picture,” how is that meant to happen when contributors like zverok are locked out of the development process, as he has questioned in his comment? Would the Ruby core team really be accepting of a whole family of multiple related features coming into a release all at once? That feels unlikely to me, especially given zverok and the other key drivers of these ideas do not have access to some of the avenues for development discussion outside of this bug tracker. So their best bet is to introduce the smaller features one by one - the initial parts of the “whole family” a which is what they’ve done with `.:`.

So where does this leave this area for improvement to Ruby? If `.:` is rejected now, it feels like it closes off this evolutionary branch of language features for good. Which, imo, is anything but good.


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Feature #16275: Revert `.:` syntax
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/16275#change-82334

* Author: naruse (Yui NARUSE)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: 
* Target version: 
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`obj.:method` is introduced at r66667 by #12125 and #13581.
It encourages the functional programming style in Ruby.

But this shorthand syntax is just for methods of `self` without arguments.
It causes another feature requests like #16273 (and lambda compositions like #15428).

Such features will introduce a new view of Ruby but no one illustrates the whole picture yet.
I worried about such patch work may cause a conflict with future expansion of functional programing style or a just a garbage feature.

`.:` syntax is introduced in 2.7.0 preview1, not released in production yet.
How about reverting at this time and re-introduce with a big picture.



-- 
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