Rightward assignments have been introduced since 3.0. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the syntax because it does not add a new dimension to Ruby. Why don't we bring Ruby to the next dimension? Proposal¶ I propose "downward assignments". p(2 * 3 * 7) #=> 42 ^^^^^var p var #=> 6 This new syntax intercepts the intermediate value of a subexpression. In the above example, the subexpression 2 * 3 is