[ruby-core:24070] Re: [Feature #1697] Object#<=>

Excerpts from Luiz Angelo Daros de Luca's message of Sun Jun 28 16:22:45 +0300 2009:
> Issue #1697 has been updated by Rick DeNatale.
> 
> 
> Well, a lot of users of <=> don't expect a nil result!

For what it is worth, when Marc-Andre brought the topic up
on #rubinius, I argued for it to always either return one
of -1, 0, 1 or then raise an error; and to never return nil
or any other value. The user may simply rescue (or not) and
differentiate between errors as needed.

Additionally, there is no need to check for nil separately
before working on the value.

One of the counterarguments was that errors are used for
"control flow" here, but I do not see it that way. I would,
in my code, probably never expect for #<=> to fail when I
use it (and never guard it with rescue): to me it indicates
a very likely design- or logic problem that should be fixed
anyway. Exceptions, pun intended, of course may exist.


Eero
--
Magic is insufficiently advanced technology.