Peculiar similarities between Ruby and Smalltalk

Ruby takes a lot of inspiration from Smalltalk. Some of the similarity is odd, though.

Smalltalk symbols and method syntax

In Smalltalk, symbols use the # sigil (e.g. #foo). In Ruby, symbols use the : sigil (e.g. :foo).

In Smalltalk, you can get a method for a given name (selector) using lookupSelector:, e.g. someArray lookupSelector: #sort. The name (or selector) of the method is a symbol. Ruby refers to methods using that same syntax as well, e.g. #first — at least in documentation, because # is used for comments in Ruby, not symbols.

The syntax for symbols using the : sigil comes from Lisp.

Each/do and blocks

In Ruby, you use #each to iterate over a collection. A block is created using do…end:

things.each do |thing|
  …
end

In Smalltalk, you use do: to iterate over a collection. A block is created with […], and the conventional name for the argument is each:

things do: [:each | …]

Block argument variables start with :, which resemble Ruby’s symbols.

When local variables are needed, they can be added using double pipes, e.g.

things do:
  [:each |
  |myLocal|
  …]

The double pipe syntax resembles Ruby’s syntax for block parameters.