As an aside: in Ruby where if is an expression not a statement you can write something very close without all the extraneous squiggles.

number = if logical_test 
           value
         else
           0
         end
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Not to mention case is also an expression and can be used similarly.

zerg = case foo
       when "bar"
         Hydralisk.new
       when "baz"
         more_creep()
       else
         raise "Too few Starcraft references"
       end
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That isn't exactly new. In ALGOL 68 (and perhaps earlier versions as well), you could do:

IF   a 
THEN b 
ELSE c 
FI := IF   d 
      THEN e 
      ELSE f 
      FI
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more or less equivalent to Perls:

($a ? $b : $c) = ($d ? $e : $f);
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Yes. Isn't Ruby nice ;-) Most of your example niceness is due to syntax, though... I've been using ruby for a couple of months now, and at first I didn't like the begin ... end type statements, but you get used to them pretty quicky, and now I actually prefer them over { ... } in ruby.

Seriously, I'm using ruby for a project now, and it *is* pretty damn good. Some of the design decisions in perl 6 are good too, but overall, I actually like the current ruby design better than perl 6. I mean, hyper operators are cool and all, but where is my easy operator overloading?

please someone tell me how to do overloading in perl 6

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"