From: John Carter <john.carter@...>
Date: 2005-05-06T13:44:01+09:00
Subject: Re: RCR 303: nil should accept missing methods and return nil

On Fri, 6 May 2005, Aredridel wrote:

>
>> If they are not doing that, then the program would
>> just crash totally. My change would change the behaviour from crashing, to
>> Doing The Right thing.
>
> Only if the right thing is "do not crash ever".
>
> For me, if a bug like that is exposed, _it's a severe error_. Not
> something to say is nil.

Is it? Prove me wrong empirically...

Save this code as nillit.rb
class NilClass
   def method_missing( symbol, *args)
     nil
   end
end


Next time your program crashes on a  "undefined method `foo' for 
nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)"

Rerun your code with....
   ruby -rnillit myprog
and see what happens, tell me the result. I'm prepared to be proven wrong.

John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz
New Zealand


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