How are you?
I was messing around, seeing what silly things could be done using Brat, and I came up with several variations of this “How are you?” program.
Here’s one: How = {|x| p "How", x[0], x[1] }
are = {|x| [" are "] + x }
you? = ["you?"]
I = {|x| p "I" , x[0], x[1], x[2] }
am = {|x, y| x + y }
fine = [" fine, "]
thank = {|x| ["thank"] + x }
you! = [" you!"]
How are you?
I am fine, thank you!
Pretty nifty, I thought.
Then I thought, “Well, I’m only using a question mark and an exclamation mark, I can probably replicate this in Ruby, too.”
This is the 2-minute direct translation I came up with:
def How x
print "How", x[0], x[1], "\n"
end
def are x
[" are "] + x
end
def you?
["you?"]
end
def I x
print "I", x[0], x[1], x[2], "\n"
end
def am x, y
x + y
end
def fine
[" fine, "]
end
def thank x
["thank"] + x
end
def you!
[" you!"]
end
How are you?
I am fine, (thank you!)
I was a little disappointed that Ruby has to be furtive about how it says thank you, but it doesn’t parse for me otherwise.