From: Alexander Kellett <ruby-lists@...>
Date: 2004-10-12T22:36:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Directions (was Re: quality of error messages)

On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 10:23:12PM +0900, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> Perhaps there are some uses of strings for which immutability makes
> performance sense, and some uses for which it doesn't.  I couldn't be
> bothered thinking about it :)

i can't imagine many cases where its less performant in fact.
immutable strings with cow are obviously far faster for copying
than mutable strings and as with most systems its the copy / 
construction of strings rather than the iteration that takes 
the time i'd say its logical that they should be immutable.
(if you look at the most common c/c++ programs (excepting apps 
 using trolltech's qt which solves the problem fairly neatly) 
 you'll see that strcpy and memory allocation take up a huge 
 chunk of execution time)

still... for coding, i love slice! / gsub! etc. they are 
amazingly useful constructs. i can't imagine living without
them :)

mvg,
Alex