From: Conrad Schneiker <schneiker@...>
Date: 2000-02-12T15:51:12-06:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:01320] Re: Draft of the updated Ruby FAQ


From: Dave Thomas <Dave@thomases.com>

> "Conrad Schneiker" <schneiker@jump.net> writes:
>
> > From: Conrad Schneiker <schneiker@jump.net>
> >
> > > I think that "1.9 Which is correct, Ruby or ruby?" needs to
additionally
> > > include and describe a third name, "Ruby!", since Ruby is our method
for
> > > changing the programming world for the better, right?
> >
> > I forgot to mention that I think it would be better to designate
> > "destructive methods" as "change methods" or "replacement methods".
>
> I must admit I don;t like 'destructive' either. I think some languages
> call them 'mutators'.

Good point; I forgot about that. That might even be the most common term,
AFAIK. However it has rather unfortunate biological associations.

Many people have started proclaiming the 21st century to be the biological
century, which I like, and which presently seems likely to endure. Another
thing that motivated the search that led me to Ruby was the growing split
between the use of Perl and Python for leading edge work in biotech, and
Ruby appears to be the best way to bridge this growing gap in the
medium-to-long run. I therefore consider the rapid development and spread of
Ruby to be quite literally good for my long term heath, and everyone else's
too. (More generally, because of its unusual simplicity and generality for
dealing with complex stuff, I also consider Ruby to have significantly
more-than-usual long term potential leverage for increasing the rate of
overall technological evolution, and thus for advancing the world economy,
and thus for helping more rapidly raise the world standard of living and
quality of life.)

So unless someone has a better idea, I very strongly prefer the
simple/natural term "change methods" over "destructive methods" or "mutator
methods".

> Group?

Conrad