From: Patrick Hurley <phurley@...>
Date: 2005-05-07T03:06:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Prove me Wrong! Re: RCR 303: nil should accept missing methods

On 5/5/05, John Carter <john.carter@tait.co.nz> wrote:
> I would suggest next 5 times you have a nil class throws
> NoMethodError crash, just add this at the head of your program...
> 
> class NilClass
>    def method_missing( sym, *args)
>      nil
>    end
> end
> 
> And see what happens.
> 
> If, your program then works correctly, then I am right.
> 
> If, your still program thows an exception or reports an error, but perhaps
> a slightly different point, then I am still right, namely this change
> doesn't hide bugs.
> 
> If the program silent proceeds to do the wrong thing, then I am wrong.


A simple example of "wrong" behavior (using the nil returns of !
methods which is another can of worms :-)

class NilClass
  def method_missing(sym, *args)
    nil
  end
end

x = "Pat"
x.strip!.upcase!

#use x in some important way....
# this now fails silently, the expectation
# was for an upcased string with no "extra" white space....
puts x