From: doodpants@... (Karl von Laudermann)
Date: 2004-09-17T01:24:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Ex-Perl coders: Howz it feel to convert to Ruby?

"Robert Klemme" <bob.news@gmx.net> wrote in message news:<2qsugrF13g5akU1@uni-berlin.de>...
> "James Edward Gray II" <james@grayproductions.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:CBB35FB8-0732-11D9-B224-000A95BA45F8@grayproductions.net...
> 
> > I feel Perl has a slight edge in quick and dirty scripting.  Simple
> > things like having to call to_s() on the integers I print or
> 
> Under which circumstances do you need to_s for numbers?

I can't speak for James, but coming from Java I'm used to using the
concatenation operator, like so:

print "foo" + 1;

This causes an error; you have to call to_s on the number. I find it
unintuitive that specifying multible arguments to the print method is
a way of concatenating them, so I rarely think to use it. I also find
it unintuitive that you don't have to call to_s when passing a
non-string argument by itself, but you do when concatenating. Perhaps
String#+ should be modified to call to_s on its arguments?

BTW, one actual benefit of using concatenation vs. multiple arguments
is that you can use puts instead of print to get a "\n" for free at
the end, but not in between each component of your string.