From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2004-05-19T19:23:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Zero is true ... whoda thunk?


"Michael Geary" <Mike@DeleteThis.Geary.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:10allar4vlk2092@corp.supernews.com...
> Claus Spitzer wrote:
> > I believe the behavior was borrowed from Smalltalk (or was
> > it Scheme? one of them). Basically, "Everything is true except
> > false". And nil. You get to the point though - what makes zero
> > so special that it would warrant being false?
>
> Because in the real world, zero means false.
>
> Suppose you have zero quarts of milk in your refrigerator. I am visiting
and
> I ask:
>
> Got milk?
>
> What's your answer, yes or no?
>
> No, of course.
>
> It's fairly unlikely that you would say, "Yes, I've got milk. I have
zero
> quarts of milk. There's nothing special about the number zero; it's just
> like any other number. So, I've got milk."
>
> Is there any real-life situation where an answer like that would make
the
> slightest bit of sense? People would think you were either trying to
annoy
> them or had lost your grip on reality.
>
> That's why Ruby's interpretation of zero as "true" seems extremely
peculiar
> to me. There's a geeky kind of logic to it, but it doesn't map onto the
real
> world at all.

milk_bottles = nil

until milkBottles
  milk_bottles = fridge.try_to_figure_number_of_milk_bottles
end

puts "Finally found #{milk_bottles} milk bottels in the fridge."

while ( value = some_number_data_source_stream.read )
  puts "Current value: #{value}"
end

These are the kinds of situations where you want 0 to be treated as
'true'.

> p.s. Don't get me wrong, I *like* Ruby. :-) But, it has its warts just
like
> every programming language.

True.  And in this case it's especially true for people coming from perl.

Regards

    robert