From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2005-03-22T15:40:31+09:00
Subject: Re: RCR 296: Destructive methods return self

From: "Hal Fulton" <hal9000@hypermetrics.com>
>
> I would almost suggest what I once suggested as a joke: Combine the ! and ?
> suffixes.
> 
>     gsub!  returns self
>     gsub!? returns self or nil  (yes, it looks silly)

It looks a little silly, but it seems pretty straightforward
to read and understand: "Oh, it's gsub-bang with a question."

The occasions when I've cared about the flag returned by the
bang methods has typically been associated with some conditional,
like:

  save(data) if data.gsub!?(/foo/, bar)

I.e. the ? is not too far from the 'if' so maybe reduces its
silliness slightly by giving it something to relate to visually?  :)

Doesn't seem too heinous to me.  


Regards,

Bill