Ruby silently unpacks vars to nil, then interpolates to "".

gistfile1.txt

dan@dan-MacPro:~$ python unpack.py 
foo: foo
bar: bar

dan@dan-MacPro:~$ ruby unpack.rb 
foo: foo
bar: 

unpack.py

try:
    foo, bar = ["foo"]
except:
    foo, bar = ["foo", "bar"]

print "foo: %s" % foo
print "bar: %s" % bar

unpack.rb

begin
    foo, bar = ["foo"]
rescue
    foo, bar = ["foo", "bar"]
end

puts "foo: #{foo}"
puts "bar: #{bar}"