From: Luke Graham <spoooq@...>
Date: 2005-05-06T15:39:52+09:00
Subject: Re: RCR 303: nil should accept missing methods and return nil

On 5/6/05, Stefan Lang <langstefan@gmx.at> wrote:
> On Friday 06 May 2005 04:27, John Carter wrote:
> > A very simple and generic way of improving the reliability of Ruby
> > programs is to implement the NullObject pattern by allowing nil to
> > accept all and every method instead of throwing a NoMethodError.
> >
> > Not only does this simplify ruby programs considerably, it also
> > changes certain crash bugs silently into correct programs.
> 
> I don't like it. It would hide many bugs. I want Ruby to throw an
> exception when I'm ending up with something like that:
> 
>     some_var = some_method
>     # some_method *should* return an IO object, but this time
>     # it returned nil
>     some_var.puts "important data"
> 
> It would be horribly if Ruby didn't throw an exception.

John wants to be proven wrong with real code. (Well, Im sure he doesnt
-want- to be proven wrong, but you know...). I can think of some
artificial code that proves the point, but Im not sure its fair to
post it.

-- 
spooq