[jimbokun]

But it looks like the important thing is that they have found a way to automatically map this syntax to Objective C method names.

EDIT: Or, as the MacRuby docs put it:

"MacRuby has a modified version of the parser which detects calls or method definitions using one regular argument, and other arguments using the key/value pair syntax. It will reconstruct the Objective-C full selector if needed. The method name that will be used in the Ruby VM is the same as the Objective-C selector."

http://www.macruby.org/trac/wiki/HowDoesMacRubyWork