From: Michel Martens <blaumag@...>
Date: 2005-01-20T04:06:30+09:00
Subject: Re: value by reference

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 02:06:04 +0900, Florian Gross <flgr@ccan.de> wrote:

>   you should have a look at the Object#become that evil-ruby implements.
> (See evil.rubyforge.org)

David: evil-ruby looks like a great efford, thank you for pointing that out.

Actually I've never had the need for this hack, I just wanted to share
my opinion. That said, I think many people gets way too defensive
(offensive?) when this kind of issues arise. Lots of virtual ink is
wasted explaining why it won't work in the current model insted of
taking a look at the benefits it could bring.

So far, the cons are two:

1. The current model doesn't support it. 
2. The performance would be poor: 

My opinion is that the programmer should be able to chose the
perfomance level he/she wants. About the ruby model, I'm happy with
the current implementation but maybe that statement ("ruby doesn't
work that way") is enough to stop any further improvement.