great! wonder why most people don't use it? I keep seeing "end" in almost every chunk of Ruby code I see on the web.

The general convention is that {} is for one line blocks, and do/end for multiline.

    [1,2,3].each{|n| puts n }

versus

    [1,2,3].each do |n|
      m = n + 1
      puts m
    end

The reason? do/end is much prettier than {}, but {} is really nice for chaining...

    [1,3,2].collect{|n| n + 2 }.sort

I find it easier to type "end" than "}".

but it's 3 characters versus 1. is it easier because you don't have to hit SHIFT?