"I consider this method (Proc#curry) to be trivial" | Hacker News Reader

"I consider this method (Proc#curry) to be trivial"

blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp

24 pointspius11 comments

David Flanagan went to MIT (lived at pika like sanj and me) and is one of those "functional programming kids." I can understand him being miffed that he just put a book out about 1.9 that doesn't cover currying.

Ah, so the dynamic here is "Aargh! Progress is marching, and so am I, but we are out of step!"

Being a software author seems to be a particularly exquisite form of torture.

If only there was some way to publish information so that users could read it right away, then David wouldn't be in this pickle!

You mean like wikis? Or online books/documentation. Yeah, it's a shame those aren't an option for publishing.

I'll also add that David is really smart guy and an excellent author.

I buy his stuff sight unseen.

  class Proc
    def curry *args
      self.class.new {|*a| self.call(*(args+a))}
    end
  end

Forgive my ignorance, but what's this all about?

I'm a "functional programming kid", but I'm not familiar with Ruby's development process nor its important people.

Matz is the creator and keeper of the Ruby language. Him and David Flanagan just cowrote what was supposed to be O'Reilly's definitive Ruby book to coincide with Ruby 1.9's recent release. Now, after the book's hit the shelves, Flanagan hears that Matz threw this nifty little currying method into the language and forgot to mention it.

Thanks.

Sounds like much ado about nothing to me. Mention it in the errata and the next edition, and move on to more important things.

If this is the book that's being referred to: http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David-Flanag.... then Flanagan's co-author was... Matz.

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/142699#633354

Yeah, it does seem pretty trivial. Granted, I would probably find it extremely useful (if I used ruby), but it doesn't seem to complicate the language to the point of needing to be delayed until a major release.

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