# New article at RC&S: If It's Not Nailed Down, Steal It: Patt

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 23, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405 "2006-05-23T21:27:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405/1 "2006-05-23T21:27:04Z")

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Topher Cyll has written an outstanding article for Ruby Code & Style[0].

“If It’s Not Nailed Down, Steal It: Pattern Matching, S-Expressions, and  
Domain Specific Languages in Ruby.”

Summary:  
There’s a whole world of language features that we sometimes miss out on  
as Rubyists, such as pattern matching, S-expressions, and external  
domain-specific languages. But the good news is that we can have them,  
too, as long as we’re not afraid to steal a few things first.

Take a gander, post some comments, and keep having fun with Ruby.

A big thanks to Topher, and thanks also to the RC&S advisory board and  
editors for helping get this out.

About RC&S:

Ruby Code & Style is the premiere online zine by and for the Ruby  
community. We’re always on the lookout for quality articles geared  
towards Ruby developers (and we’re now able to pay the writers). If  
you have an idea you think you may want to write about, please drop me a  
line: ruby.code.and.style AT gmail DOT com

[0] [artima - If It's Not Nailed Down, Steal It](http://www.artima.com/rubycs/articles/patterns_sexp_dsls.html)

James B.  
Editor-in-Chief, Ruby Code & Style

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**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405/2 "2006-05-23T21:36:14Z")

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On 5/23/06, James B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Topher Cyll has written an outstanding article for Ruby Code & Style[0].
> 
> “If It’s Not Nailed Down, Steal It: Pattern Matching, S-Expressions, and  
> Domain Specific Languages in Ruby.”

Not a comment on the article yet, as I haven’t got that far in (what  
I’ve seen so far, looks great, though!). I did notice however that the  
something in the formatting engine is messing with some of the code  
samples. For example, a line that I assume should look like this:

return 1 if n == 0 || n == 1

Looks instead like this:

return 1 if n 0 || n 1

Just FYI…

Jacob F.

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**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 9:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405/3 "2006-05-23T21:42:39Z")

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Jacob F. wrote:

> return 1 if n 0 || n 1

☹

Thanks! I’ll go get that sorted out.

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**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 9:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405/4 "2006-05-23T21:42:46Z")

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Great article! Finally, I see what s-exps are about.

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**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 5:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-article-at-rc-s-if-its-not-nailed-down-steal-it-patt/61405/5 "2006-05-24T05:20:09Z")

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On May 23, 2006, at 2:26 PM, James B. wrote:

> Topher Cyll has written an outstanding article for Ruby Code & Style  
> [0].

This is a terrific article. Thanks for sharing.

James Edward G. II